Yehuda Poliker - A Window to the Mediterrian Sea

A fitting song for these pensive days between Holocaust Memorial Day and Independence Day. Yehuda Poliker will light a torch at this year's Independence Day ceremony, chosen for his contribution to Israeli music and specifically for the 1988 album "Ashes and Dust", which gave voice to the children of Holocaust survivors. Ya'akov Gilad, who wrote the lyrics for this song, said in an interview in 2008 that the story in the song is fictional but it's based on stories that Jacko Poliker, Yehuda Poliker's father and a Holocaust survivor from Greece, and Halyna Birenbaum, Gilad's mother and a Holocaust survivor from Poland, who both survived Auschwitz, told him. Gilad wrote: "I mostly wondered where they found the courage to bring children into a world in which its most monstrous sides they had seen up close and experienced first hand. It's still a wonder to me because both Yehuda and I are sons of Holocaust survivors, we were both born five years after our parents were liberated from Auschwitz.
What went through their heads when they decided to bring children into this world, after that inferno, in the poverty of the early days of the country, when their whole world and everyone they loved remained in the piles of ashes? From conversations with my mother and Yehuda's father, we found that there was always some hope that kept them alive both in the death camps and in the years after the war. A hope that they didn't dare to give up on because this hope lies at the foundation of humanity wherever it is, and giving up on that hope means the victory of the devil.
From here the last line was born: And perhaps from afar, there's a chance of one in a million, and perhaps from afar, some happiness creeps into the window. Based on that tiny chance they came here, restored their lives from scratch, and gave birth to us. That's the whole story."

It's so quiet and peaceful outside but as I'm writing this I'm receiving notifications of another escalation in the South with over 100 rockets launched from Gaza. I can only hope that this flare-up won't get out of control.

I promised to write when I left
And I haven't written in a while
Now I miss you so much
It's a pity, a pity you aren't here with me.

After I arrived in Jaffa
Hopes were born out of despair
I found a room and a half
On the roof of an abandoned house.

There's a folding bed here
If the three of us will want to sleep
You, me, and the child
In front of a window looking to the Mediterranean Sea.

And perhaps from afar, there's a chance of one in a million
And perhaps from afar, some happiness creeps into the window.

December 1950
Outside there's a war of winds
The snow suddenly fell here
White reminds me of forgotten memories.

The wound is still open
If only you were with me now
I'd probably tell you
All that can't be said in a letter

Here if you want, you have a home
And you will have a lot of me
The laughter of children at dusk
In front of a window looking to the Mediterranian Sea.

And perhaps from afar, there's a chance of one in a million
And perhaps from afar, some happiness creeps into the window