First Cry: Moshe Ben-Meir's Early Holocaust Poetry of the Un-Passover

Abstract

The response of America's Hebrew literati to the Holocaust has been long-neglected. The compositions created bear the markings of the immediate years of the Sho'ah and thereafter and are among the earliest works of literature to address the matter. Moshe Ben-Mier's strategy of representation of the Holocaust in poetry composed between 1941 and 1944 is by inverting traditional liturgy and Scripture of the Exodus story as an expression of his sense of powerlessness and loss of faith in covenantal promises in light of the experiences and premonitions of things to come. His poems comprise a single whole that undermines the story of the Passover to engender the Un-Passover.