While still a girl, and living in what is now Belarus, Celia Dropkin (1887-1956) wrote poetry in Russian. Only when she came to the U.S. in 1912 did she begin composing verse in Yiddish; she went on to become one of the most important American Yiddish poets of the 20th century. Shoshana Olidort has translated two poems, from a rare edition of Dropkin’s work, that are not available in the two standard collections. Herewith, the opening lines of “The Ballad of the Old Woman with the Basket and the Passengers on a Refugee Ship”:

Woven within the grayness of the sea
Absorbed within the lullaby of the sea
Absorbed within the white foam,
the silver foam
of the clouds’ white sheep—
—Sleep, sleep!

An old, old woman
with long-loose gray hair
rocks me, rocking with such feeling
her eyes watery, blurry,
her voice a monotonous murmur.
She rocks me in a large water-basket,
she rocks me with her old hands,
she rocks and carries me far into the undulating space.

Suddenly, she wakes me: Get up, get up!
I hear in her voice a melancholic cry,
and sirens answer, like an echo.
All at once, a ship appears
and people stand quietly at the edge of the ship
and people look silently into the depths.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.