This book takes its title from the poignant words of Hannah Szenes, who lived in a kibbutz just south of the ancient coastal city of Caesarea Maritima and was executed by the Nazis during a clandestine operation in Europe to save Hungarian Jews. The haunting poem, which remains so powerful in the collective consciousness of Israel, captures the numinous beauty of the place while evoking the memory of the poet’s tragic end. One of the wealthiest administrative, commercial, and cultural centers on the eastern Mediterranean seaboard between Alexandria and Antioch, Caesarea was also a hotbed of religious ferment and […]
