A Visitor From Haifa
/Hello Poetry Fans,
Recently I had the distinct pleasure of meeting a young researcher from the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, located in Haifa.
The Technion is a world class university where scientists, doctors, engineers are trained; a place that employs Nobel Prize winners, a place that has successfully solved such diverse problems as methods of irrigation for farming as well as methods for the strategic defense of Israel.
Bio-medical advancement is just one of dozens of areas of research that are conducted there; for example, American corporations like Intel that produce computers have partnered with the Technion as well.
I was very impressed by this particular visitor from Haifa to our city. The experience of who she is and what she does struck me. I know from whence she came, and what her work means. I know the present state of much of the world's opinion of Israel.
I will share with you the following poem, which I hope, as an effective poem should, speaks for itself:
Doctor Esty
There is plenty of snow on the ginkos, the sycamores
& our Pittsburgh hills; ice chunks in the holes in the streets,
but not enough to deter my two aged
lady friends, having bundled themselves into furs,
leaning on canes, off with me to meet
the brave cancer survivor from Israel,
herself young, blonde, articulate. Herself a distinguished
researcher, an engineer who investigates possibilities,
each one a bright hard pellet of silicone
she aims into suffering flesh.
Thousands of years of selection and here she is,
a matter-of-fact Israeli, a Sabra, she tells us:
Father Roumanian, Mother from Turkey, both of them Sephardic,
and I think of how they got out in time, the parents,
and all the millions like them who did not.
She works very hard, their daughter;
obsessed with helping the world find the path to cure cancer.
— Judith R. Robinson
Thank you for clicking in.
Judy
Read more: The Jewish Chronicle - entry A VISITOR FROM HAIFA