B”H

                                                           15 Elul 5784/September 18, 2024

Dear poets, readers, friends,
                                                    We’re glad to tell you
That The Deronda Review’s twentieth issue
Is now online, as usual in two formats –
.html for easier online reading
And .pdf, from which a duplex printer
Can make you a facsimile of the issue....

The theme we had announced, some months ago,
Was “trust” – trust, most of all, among ourselves,
Mortals pressured and pulled so many ways
Wary of our own selves, let alone others,
And yet if we’ve found out that media
And government are not our faithful friends,
Must we not try to reconstruct the tissue
Of bonds among us which the media weaken?
That was the thought behind this year’s “assignment,”
And it could be continued for next issue,
With the addition of the topic: Will,
Trusting that G-d will spare us till that time.

The issue partly mirrors, partly doesn’t,
The perturbations of the year which now,
In the Hebrew calendar, will soon be over –

“A year of curses draweth to its close,”
In one translation of a seasonal hymn.
“We’re living on two levels,” is a saying
Heard from two people in this last year’s course,
As life goes on – births, weddings, natural
Departures from this world; feast day and Sabbath,
The tides of individual destinies –
And on the other hand the history
Unfolding far too close for any comfort,
With old wounds opening in memory
Too vividly refreshed. 
                                         Well, in this issue
There are poems that know nothing of all this,
And poems that seem to strive to add a chapter
To that most contemporary of all texts,
The psalms of David, only understood
By those who open them in danger’s shadow.
For both kinds, we are grateful, and especially
To those who have continued to contribute
From afar from the sphere of our contending.
We hope the poems brought here will convey,
Despite the darkness which some come to grips with,

Something of poetry’s traditional “sweetness
And light”, in Matthew Arnold’s much-mocked phrase --

The mockers fail to grasp that poetry,
Whatever good or grievous news it carries,
Also brings intimation of a freedom
We have, to make of raw events a beauty –
Like the Gazan rocket metal which the artist

Yaron Bob has fashioned  into roses. 
There is a lot of work like that being done
In Israel these days, and we have hope
That from this chaos something will be born
That will outlast the hatred and the libels
And placate, though it cannot cancel, grief.
You who are reading this, and who will read
The issue: we request that you commend it
As far and wide as you can reach, so that
A few more people in the world may know
Who we are, what we endure and hope.

Wishing all a year of strength and blessings
Esther Cameron
Mindy Aber Barad
Editors, The Deronda Review