At Machpelah – How Many Little Zuz-Coins?
In Israel, the day carries a peculiar resonance. Elderly veterans wearing Soviet medals stand in streets filled with Hebrew signs. Old wartime songs emerge again near Mediterranean cafés, Russian grocery shops, municipal ceremonies, and parks where grandchildren speak Hebrew while grandparents still murmur in Russian or Ukrainian. The State of Israel itself officially recognizes the date – something that would once have seemed unimaginable: a Jewish state integrating the Soviet victory over Nazism into its own commemorative landscape.
Yet this recognition is not artificial. Entire fragments of Jewish life survived because the Red Army defeated Nazi Germany. Soviet Jewish memory cannot simply erase this fact. Even those who suffered later under Soviet oppression knew that without that victory, entire worlds would have disappeared forever.
But memory does not remain unchanged.
What once carried the reality of liberation slowly became something more ambiguous: nostalgia, ritualized suffering, imperial longing, inherited grief transformed into permanent identity. One sometimes has the impression that Победа\Pobeda no longer signifies only victory, but the endless emotional reenactment of victory.
And after the invasion of Ukraine, the fracture deepened still further.
For many former Soviet olim in Israel, Ukraine was never “abroad.” Kyiv, Odessa, Berdichev, Uman, Transnistria, Kharkiv, Babi Yar – these belong to internal Jewish geography. Families who considered themselves culturally Russian often carried Ukrainian Jewish roots embedded somewhere in language, recipes, songs, cemetery names, or childhood memories.
Thus many found themselves internally divided: between inherited gratitude toward the Soviet victory, and horror before the return of large-scale destruction.
Perhaps this is why the old songs sound different today. Here is the poem I wrote in Yiddish for this year special 81st anniversary of the two Victory dates.
בײַ מכפּלה װיפֿיל זוז־רענדלעך?
ל״ג בעמר ברענט נאָך אין דער לוּפֿט
און די אַלטע לידער פֿון פּאָבעדע
קלינגען איבערחזרנדיק בײַ סטאַנציעס אין סיביר
At Machpelah – how many little zuz-coins?
Lag Ba’Omer still burns in the air,
and the old songs of Pobeda – victory –
keep echoing near stations in Siberia.
אױך אין דער קירגיזישער דיכטוּנג און װערטער פֿון אַבראַשאַ ־
װאוּ חלומות און קור האָבן אַמאָל געכאַפּט די מענטשן ־
״נצח״ מײנט ניט בלױז זיגן
נאָר אַ חילוק און מער פֿון אײַביקײט
Also in Kyrgyz poetry and the words of Abrasha –
where dreams and cold once seized human beings –
“Netzakh” does not mean victory alone,
but something different, something beyond eternity.
Already in these opening lines, the atmosphere shifts away from simple commemoration. Victory becomes metaphysical, almost unstable. The Hebrew word נצח\netzakh carries within it both triumph and endurance, but also continuity beyond historical conquest. The poem quietly suggests that civilizations often confuse these meanings.
One may conquer territories and still lose eternity.
This ambiguity is perhaps what defines the contemporary post-Soviet atmosphere around May 9. The medals remain real. The sacrifice remains real. But the emotional machinery surrounding them has grown heavier, almost liturgical. Military parades, songs, ribbons, eternal flames, processions carrying portraits of the dead – all these increasingly resemble the rituals of a civilization attempting to preserve itself through memory alone.
And yet another layer persists beneath the official ceremonies:
the memory of camps, purges, silenced poets and assassinated writers, secret unexplained disappearances,
the strange intimacy between glory and fear.
אַ מין פֿון טעם און אַװירה נאָך מלחמות און קרבנות ־
אַ בת־קול בלײַבט ־ אױך װען איפּעריעס
שלאָפֿן אַ לאַנגע צײַט אוּנטער שנײ און פֿראָסט…
אַלטע מעדאַלן קלינגען בײַם ברוּסט־בײן
A kind of taste, an atmosphere lingering
after wars and sacrifices.
A bat-kol remains, even when empires
sleep a long time beneath snow and frost…
Old medals clink against the breastbone
like little bells from forgotten providences.
The image of the medals is crucial here. They are not mocked. Nor are they glorified. They become relics of human survival itself — fragments of history carried physically upon aging bodies. One hears in them not only Soviet triumph, but exhaustion, tenderness, mourning.
At the same time, the poem moves eastward across Eurasia. This movement matters profoundly.
The contemporary world is no longer centered solely on Europe and the Atlantic sphere. Memory itself now travels through new geopolitical landscapes: China, Korea, Harbin, Sakhalin, Birobidzhan, the Arctic routes, technological corridors stretching across Asia.
And Jewish memory travels there too.
מען זאָגט: ״גוּאאָ״ 国 האָט אַמאָל געמײנט און געװיזן
אין מאַנדאַרין־שריפֿט ־
אַ פּױער אַרבעט אין אַ ברײַטן פֿעלד
און פּלוּגט אַרוּם די ערד פֿון דזשוּנק־גוּאאָ
People say that “Guó” 国 once meant and depicted,
in Mandarin script,
a peasant laboring in a broad field,
plowing the soil of Zhōngguó – China.
דאָס לאַנד, טעריטאָריעס אין מיט־צװישן פֿון דער גאָרער װעלט ־
דער אידעאָגראַם איז דערהײַנטיקט געװאָרן בײַ דער רעװאָלוציאָן־צײַט:
איצט זעט מען אַ מלך אין די זעלבע פּױיערלעכע גרענעצן
דער מלך איז דער פֿירער
The land, the territories in the middle of the whole world.
But the ideogram was renewed in revolutionary times:
now one sees a king inside the same peasant borders.
The king becomes the leader.
This is not merely political commentary on China. The poem is tracing a broader transformation of civilization itself: the movement from land and labor toward centralized technological power. Ancient imperial structures now return clothed in digital systems, algorithms, surveillance, and global military reach.
The old empires never entirely disappeared. They migrated into networks.
און ער שיקט סיגנאַלן דוּרך װעלט און קאָסמאָס אַהין
דורך נערװען־שיטות פֿון שטאָל און כּלי־חשמלים ־
יעדער נפֿש טראָגט יעצט אין קעשענעס
די גענויע מכשירים פֿון טױט־מלחמה
And he sends signals through world and cosmos alike
through nervous systems of steel and electric instruments —
every soul now carries in its pockets
the precise devices of death-war.
פֿון ביראָבידזאַן ביז חאַרבין
פֿירט אַן אײַזנבאַן ־ דרינען הערט׳ס צעשױבערטע לשונות
רוסיש, יידיש, קאָרעאַניש, מאַנדזוּ, יאַפּאַניש, כינעזיש
און די פֿילע טוּרקישע שפּראַכן פֿון װײַטן מזרח ־
From Birobidzhan to Harbin
a railway stretches on — inside it one hears shattered tongues:
Russian, Yiddish, Korean, Manchu, Japanese, Chinese,
and the many Turkic languages of the Far East.
These lines perhaps contain the deepest hidden layer of what I feel when writing this poem. They reveal that Jewish memory did not remain confined to Europe. The twentieth century scattered Jewish existence across Siberia, Manchuria, Shanghai, Central Asia, the Pacific world. Entire forgotten corridors of Yiddish-speaking life once crossed these territories.
Today, strange echoes return again. The remarkable Yiddish Glory ensemble tours Asia with recovered wartime songs from Transnistria and the Soviet Jewish world. Lost voices unexpectedly reappear in Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo. History travels eastward again.
But the poem refuses nostalgia. Technology now reshapes war itself.
דראָנען פֿליען װי בלינדע עופֿות־טמאים
אַריבער קברים און סטראַטילאַטן
מיט די צוקוּנפֿטיקע דזשוּקעס פֿון מלחמה.
Drones fly like blind unclean birds
over graves and stratolites,
bearing the future insects of war.
אין יאַפּאַן פֿאַרבלײַבן די שדים לענגער פֿון מענטשן
אַ פּאַפּירענער קראַן שטײט נאָך
לעבן אַ װאַנט װאוּ די שרעקלעכע היץ
האָט אין אַ פּאָר מינוּטן אױסגעמעקט די נפשות ־
In Japan, the demons outlast human beings.
A paper crane still stands
beside a wall where terrible heat
erased souls within a few minutes.
זאָגט מען שטיל אין אַ דאָדזשאָ בוּשידאָ 武士道 קאמפספארטן\בוּשידאָ
פֿוּל מיט שװײגנדיקע בײנער ־
הערט אַ בחור פֿון אַ ״דאָ־דזשאָ״ ־
עפּעס פֿון טױט־זשעסטן ־
Quietly one says in a dōjō:
Bushidō/martial arts 武士道, Bushidō –
inside a hall full of silent bones.
A young man in the dōjō hears
something of gestures of death,
unintelligible music
for dying samurai.
The poem senses that the twentieth century did not end in 1945. It merely changed technological form. Old warrior ethics, imperial memories, sacrificial myths, and civilizational reflexes continue reappearing beneath modern systems of algorithms, satellites, and drones.
Even silence itself survives differently in Asia. Hiroshima, Harbin, Sakhalin, Korea, Manchuria – these places still carry unresolved historical atmospheres beneath contemporary prosperity and technological acceleration.
דער אַייִנוּ איז ערשט אַ מענטש, אַ װױלע נשמה
איצט כמעט פֿאַרבאָרגן געװאָרן אין זײַנע פֿיש־קלײַדער ־
אין קאָרעע פּילפּוּלט דער סטוּדענט דעם דף־יומי
צװישן צװײ אימפּעריעס ־
The Ainu is first of all a human being,
a gentle soul,
now almost hidden
inside garments of fish-skin.
In Korea, a student debates the Daf Yomi
between two empires.
לערנט װעגן שור שנגח
בעת די װעלט רעדט אלגעריטמען און ראַקעטן ־
הײַנט נאָך לױבט מען נאָך די װעלט־פּאָבעדע
װעל מען באַשטימען נײַע גדרים
Studying the ox that gored
while the world speaks in algorithms and rockets.
Even today people still praise the world-victory.
New borders will yet be decided.
אין טײַװאַן אָדער סאַכאַלין.
נאָר זעט מען אַ בריק פֿון אײַביקײט
װאָס איז ניצול געװאָרן מיט די צעשפּלאַטענע שטימען ־
זײ שטײן העכער װי אַלע טוּרעם־בבל ־
In Taiwan or Sakhalin.
Yet one can still see a bridge of eternity
that survived together with shattered voices.
They stand higher than all towers of Babel.
אַריבער עפר־ואפר
און די נאָזלעכער הימיק רודפֿן חסד ורחמים.
Beyond dust and ashes,
while chemical vapors pursue mercy and compassion.
The contrast is painful and beautiful at once. Ancient rabbinic arguments continue quietly while technological civilization accelerates toward increasingly abstract forms of violence. Human beings still study, pray, debate, remember — even as the world reorganizes itself around systems of control and destruction.
And then the poem suddenly returns to Abraham.
Not Abraham the conqueror.
Abraham the refugee.
בײַ מערת־מכפלה ־ בײַם מקומדיקן יד און שם
האָט אבֿרהם אָפּגעװאָגן זילבער
מיט ציטערנדיקע חברונער מטבעות ־ אַמאָליקע זוּזים
ניט צו קױפֿן קײַן נצח אָדער װערן אַ ראש־המלכות…
At the Cave of Machpelah –
at the local place of name and memorial –
Abraham weighed out silver
with trembling Hebronite coins, ancient zuz-pieces,
not to buy eternity
nor become the head of a kingdom…
This may be the true center of the poem.
All empires seek permanence. They seek monuments, victories, expansion, historical immortality. But Abraham purchases only a burial place. Not conquest. Not dominion. Not geopolitical greatness.
Only dignity for the dead. Only covenantal continuity. Only memory.
נאָר האָט ער באַערדיקט זײַן נשמה־קשהשרה
װי אַ פּליט אין פֿרעמדער נײַ־אַלטער אדמה.
װער װאָלט נעמען אַ זוז אין דער אײַביקײט?
ניצחון בלײַבט דאָך דער חותם פֿון דעם
װאָס לעבט און איבערלעבט אײַביק.
He only buried his difficult-souled Sarah
like a refugee
in a foreign ancient-new land.
Who would take a zuz into eternity?
Victory remains only the seal
of that which lives
and survives forever.
Perhaps this is the real question hidden beneath contemporary Victory Day itself.
Not whether victory existed – it did.
Not whether sacrifice was real – it was.
But somewhere beyond parades and slogans, another voice remains audible too: fragile, wandering, Yiddish mixed with the numerous local sounds of the Turkiç, Slavic, Siberian, Mongolian, Syriac-Aramaic human speeches.
Like the small trembling sound of ancient coins weighed quietly beside a grave.
In 1945, many believed that history itself had reached a decisive turning point. The great empires of Europe lay exhausted, Nazism had been crushed – it did not disappear as we see these days in oppressional attacks. Technological modernity seemed destined to reorganize the world into a more rational international order. Yet beneath the ruins, older continental forces continued moving silently through Eurasia itself. The East remained a living civilizational space – carrying buried memories, imperial reflexes, spiritual traditions, demographic movements, railway corridors, languages, and unresolved historical wounds.
Today these energies rise again in unexpected forms: through digital sovereignties, Arctic routes, Asian power centers, military technologies, demographic shifts, and renewed struggles over memory and territory. The old songs of Pobeda (Победа – Victory) no longer echo only through Europe, but across an immense Eurasian landscape stretching from Siberia to Shanghai, from Harbin to Sakhalin, from Korea to Jerusalem itself.
And perhaps this is why Abraham’s trembling zuz-coins at Machpelah matter more than ever. Against every dream of permanent conquest, they remind us that human dignity begins not with empire, but with burial, memory, humility, and the fragile continuity of life beyond victory itself.