Walls do not always fall when history changes direction. Some remain standing, others appear unexpectedly, and people continue to cross them, sometimes without being noticed. I wrote this Yiddish poem about mysterious wall-walkers who explore the boundaries of nations, religions, languages, and memory until they reach the one wall that no human being can avoid: time itself.

When peace creates new boundaries

On November 11, 1918, the guns fell silent on the Western Front. The Armistice ended four years of unprecedented slaughter. Yet the same date meant something very different elsewhere.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose dynastic imagination had long been expressed through the initials AEIOU, was disintegrating. Its peoples, languages, and religious traditions could not be neatly redistributed among newly emerging states.

The Russian Empire had already collapsed. Revolution, civil war, and competing national aspirations transformed its former territories.

Ukraine was experiencing a particularly dramatic transition. Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, whose Ukrainian State depended heavily on German and Austro-Hungarian support, faced political disintegration. On November 14, he proposed federation with a future non-Bolshevik Russia. His regime collapsed on December 14, amid an uprising led by the Directory. Ukrainian independence remained a contested and vulnerable aspiration.

Thus, Western Europe’s beginning of peace coincided with upheaval elsewhere. The disappearance of empires did not eliminate borders. It created new ones.

A person could remain in the same house and discover that the country surrounding it had disappeared.

Crossing without destroying

The Yiddish expression מױער־װענט־גײער (Moyer-Vent-Geyer) evokes the French passe-muraille, someone who walks through solid walls. But Yiddish multiplies the image: moyer, a substantial wall; vent, the plural of vant, walls; and geyer, the walker.

The figure does not demolish anything. The stones remain standing.

He is simultaneously the person who crosses and the one who makes another person’s passage possible. He is neither a dybbuk, a spirit possessing someone, nor a gilgul, a soul undergoing reincarnation. His presence concerns something more immediate: the possibility of reaching another human being despite apparently insurmountable boundaries.

The poem brings together Elijah the Prophet, the Baal Shem Tov, and Saint Nicholas of Myra. They belong to distinct religious traditions, yet each may appear as an unexpected visitor, protector, or witness.

The rabbinic principle of דרכי־שלום (darkhei shalom), the ways of peace, introduces the difficult relationship between law, boundaries, and coexistence. Commandments and transgressions establish distinctions. But what happens when someone remains stranded on the other side?

The poem questions without pretending that every boundary must disappear.

מױער־װענט־גײער — Wall-Walkers Through Walls

Yiddish original and English translation, arranged in four movements of four units.

ס׳זײַנען מױער־גײער, זײ טרעטן דורך װאַנטן און װענט,
ניט מיט אַ האַמער, ניט מיט שטאַרקע פֿױסטן און הענט,
די שטײנער בלײַבן שטײן, מען רירט זײ קױם אָן,
פּלוצעם זײַנען מיר דאָרטן, װאוּ קײנער
האָט אונדז ניט געזען.

There are wall-walkers; they pass through walls and walls,
Not with a hammer, nor with powerful fists and hands.
The stones remain standing; they are hardly touched.
Suddenly we find ourselves where nobody
Has ever seen us.

מיר טרעפֿן אליהו הנביא אַרומטאַפּנדיק אין אַ געסל,
ער פֿרעגט ניט װער איז דאָס פֿאָלק, נאָר מיר שפּאַצירן אַהין,
דער בעל־שם־טוב שמײכלט פֿון אַן אומצײַטיקן פֿענצטער
און זאָגט: אַ װעג בלײַבט אַ װעג װעגן דרכי־שלום,
גענױ װען קײן װעג פֿירט ניט מער װײַטער.

We meet Elijah the Prophet, feeling his way through a narrow alley.
He does not ask which people we belong to; we simply walk along.
The Baal Shem Tov smiles from a window outside its time
And says, A road remains a road for the sake of darkhei shalom, the ways of peace,
Precisely when no road leads any farther.

מצות שטעלן קאָרדאָנען, אױכעט עבֿירות בײַצײַטיק,
װאָס טוט מען װען אַ מענטש בלײַבט אױף דער אַנדערער זײַט?
מיר טרעטן אַריבער, אָן צו צעברעכן אַ לאָקאַלע נפש,
נאָר קײן געזעץ זאָל ניט פֿאַרגעסן די דורכגײענדיקע תּקופֿות.

Commandments establish cordons, and transgressions do so in their own time.
What can be done when a human being remains on the other side?
We cross over without breaking a local soul,
Yet no law should forget the generations and periods passing through.

אַ הײַם איז אַ הײַם, הײַמיש, אויוּטנע
װער באַהאַלט דעם שליסל?

A home is a home, familiar, unlined, warm, homely, and sheltered.
Who is hiding the key?

אַ פּליט שטײט בײַם מױער, אַ קינד האַלט אַ פּעקל אין דער האַנטפֿלאַך
מע גײט דורך די װענט, זײ עפֿענען זיך פֿון אינעװײניק:

A refugee stands beside the wall; a child holds a bundle in the palm of a hand.
We pass through the walls; they open from within:

יידיש טראָגט די תּיבֿות, די הײַם איבער ים און יבֿשה.

Yiddish carries the words “the home” (and the world) across seas and continents.

מור זוכא־סינטערקלאַסמר רוקט זיך איבער און פֿאָרבײַ,
שטיל אין ליכט און פֿינצטערניש,
װאוּ פֿרױען און קינדער שרעקן זיך פֿאַר גװאַלד,

Mor Zokhe-Sinterklaas moves across and passes by,
Quietly, in light and darkness,
Where women and children tremble before violence.

קײן טעלע־פֿילמיקע װעט דעם דורכגײער פֿאַרגעדענקען,
דער געראַטעװעטער מענטש דערצײלט:
עמעצער האָט אים באַװאַכט אָן שפּור.

No televised film will remember the one who passes through.
The person who was rescued tells the story:
Someone protected him without leaving a trace.

אין ירושלים גײען יאָרהונדערטער בכל מקומות,
אַ מענטש פֿון נעכטן קליקט אַ מאָרגנדיקער מוּװי־װאַנט
פֿון פֿרנט, הינטן, אױבן, אונטן ־ און דאָ,

In Jerusalem, centuries walk through every place.
A person from yesterday clicks on tomorrow’s movie wall,
From the front, behind, above, below – and here.

די חומות שטײען, דער װענט־גײער גײט װײַטער
אומבאַמערקלעך? נאָר באַשײדן.

The ancient walls remain standing; the wall-walker continues onward.
Unnoticed? Rather, modestly.

אַ מױער װעט צעפֿאַלן לפֿעמים, אַ גוף װערט שטױב… אַ מזל־גורל,
אַ באַרג פֿאַרלירט שטײַנער, אַ דענקמאָל אפֿשר,

A wall will sometimes collapse; a body becomes dust… a matter of fate.
A mountain loses stones, perhaps a monument as well.

עמעצער געדענקט אַז אַ מאָל פּאַרשױנען זײַנען דורכגעגאַנגען
אין יענע ערטער
און דער דורכגײער װעט װידערקומען.

Someone remembers that people once passed
Through those places,
And the one who passes through will return.

אין בית־החיים ליגן נעמען־שמות, שטײַנער און יאָרן,
כאָטש װאוּ זײ רוּען פּשוט אָן קבר, אין דער לופֿט?

In the cemetery, names upon names lie among stones and years.
Yet where do they rest, simply without a grave – in the air?

פֿאַרברענט, צעבלאָזן, אָן אַ שפּור, אָן אַ צײכן,
 צײַט נעמט זײ אַרויס פֿון דעם עולם־גולם?

Burned, scattered, without a trace, without a sign.
Does time remove them from this olam-golem, this world of unformed matter?

די לעצטע װאַנט איז צײַט להבא, ניט קײן שטײַן, ניט קײן טױער,
מיר קומען צו איר: װער װעט אונדז דערנאָך דערקענען?
װער גײט דורך די לעצטע חומות?

The final wall is the time to come, neither stone nor gate.
We approach it: who will recognize us afterward?
Who passes through the final walls?

קײנער געדענקט ניט דעם גײער־צלם ־
אפֿשר בלײַבט אַ טריט, אַ קול, אַ מענטש:
װעגן בלײַבן נאָך אַלץ אָפֿן.

Nobody remembers the image of the wanderer —
Perhaps a footstep remains, a voice, a human being:
The ways remain open, after all.

Historical time is also transmitted through families.

In 1918, both my parents were eighteen. They had grown up in a multilingual world where Yiddish, Ukrainian, and other languages belonged to everyday education and cultural exchange. My maternal grandfather, a Jewish man who helped Christian Ukrainians and was accepted among them, had died on August 14, 1914, at the beginning of the catastrophe. His children witnessed the violence and upheavals that followed.

Their generation had inherited a world in which coexistence could still be imagined across imperial, national, and religious boundaries. The Habsburg K.u.K. order was disappearing, while the future League of Nations would seek another form of international coexistence. These were different political realities, but both confronted the problem of living together across differences. More than a century later, their memories can still be spoken. Time has passed, yet their voices have not entirely disappeared.

A home carried through languages

The poem’s linguistic combinations reflect the experience of people whose lives cannot be confined within a single territory or language.

The Yiddish הײַם (heym) evokes home and belonging. The Slavic-derived אויוּטנע (uyutne) suggests warmth and shelter. Yet someone may conceal the key.

Yiddish itself becomes a portable home, carrying Germanic, Hebrew-Aramaic, and Slavic elements across continents. The word תּיבֿות (teyves) means “words,” while the Hebrew tevah also recalls Noah’s ark and the basket that protected Moses.

Language becomes a vessel of survival.

The refugee carrying a small bundle belongs as much to 1918 as to the present. What remains when a home disappears? Sometimes a language, a prayer, a remembered voice.

Saint Nicholas, imaginatively joined to Sinterklaas, introduces the Christian tradition of protection without spectacle. The rescued person remembers an intervention, even when the protector leaves no trace.

Ecclesiastical walls and human encounters

The visit of Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem to Moscow also raises questions about boundaries.

Ecclesiastical ceremonies, decorations, and expressions of fraternity may preserve communication amid political conflict. They do not necessarily resolve the suffering of communities divided by war. The Orthodox Churches inherit canonical jurisdictions, national traditions, and prayers shaped by centuries of political history. The relationship between ecclesiastical communion and political allegiance remains particularly difficult when believers find themselves on opposing sides of armed conflicts.

A patriarch may cross geographical frontiers while remaining bound by the responsibilities of his office.

The more demanding question concerns the human beings who cannot cross. The wall-walker proposes no canonical solution. His presence asks whether reaching another person requires the destruction of that person’s identity.

Jerusalem and the final boundary

Jerusalem offers an extraordinary experience of overlapping centuries. Its inhabitants follow different calendars, religious traditions, and historical memories. Ancient stones coexist with digital screens that reproduce images without necessarily preserving the meaning of human actions.

The poem distinguishes between being unnoticed and being modest. Not every invisible presence is an absence.

Yet the final wall is unlike the others.

The cemetery, בית־החיים (beys-hakhayim), literally the house of life, preserves names, stones, and dates. But what of those who have no graves? The burned, the scattered, those whose remains have disappeared confront memory with its limitations.

The unusual compound עולם־גולם (olam-golem) evokes a world still unfinished, unable to account for every human existence.

Jewish and Christian traditions approach death, resurrection, and the world to come through distinct moral and theological understandings. The poem does not erase those differences or explain what lies beyond death.

It asks who will recognize us after our passage, and trespass.

Some walls protect; others imprison. Some preserve memory; others conceal suffering.

The wall-walker may cross them, or make another person’s passage possible. Sometimes he accomplishes both without being recognized. Eventually, he too encounters the final boundary: time itself.

The poem offers no easy reassurance that every wall will collapse. It suggests something more demanding: passage may remain possible even when the stones are still standing.

װעגן בלײַבן נאָך אַלץ אָפֿן.

The ways remain open, after all.