Rembrandt's Jews

...R E M B R A N D T ' S ORIENTAL Fist in palm, and poised on throne of darkness, lumpy white silk turban like a beacon lighting up the face below, as though he wore his brains in bandages, or carried sacrificial Isaac, tressured in a shroud of gauze, bent down around his head, and bound, and blindfolded, and fastened with an emerald brooch: he rules this roost, embadged in priestly wrought-gold jewelled cloak-clasp, waiting for the end of days to make official all the claims of Aaronide descent, the day when he'll ascend the Temple Mount and, without a blink or second thought, pronounce atonement for himself, his house, and all the prostrate throngs below— just like Aaron, but with all the toil of history packed in shadows at his side...

...the eyebrows and the hollow cheek frame arches of an extra care, as, by these shadows, to bespeak conspicuous exclusion of the air, like absent praises of His holy Name, like midrashim, those dancing dragons, straining through the bars of argument, while, beneath the huge, black, silhouetted ethrog of a hat, a glowing forehead looms, to treat you not to a philosophy but a philosophizing, the biting presence of an 1, while, still behind, the warmth of fathers burns its plain and sanctifying brand of memory on this troubled baroque brow...

...R E M B R A N D T ' S G H E T T O JESUS A moving teacher, camera-shy and busy, copied from a dozen Jewish faces, prays, and heals, and preaches, telling stories to the beggars and parables to burghers, smiling a gioconda smile, head and hand foreshortened, perched and energetic, the drape of cloak and rope etched out with care...

...Three Poems by Joel Rosenberg Rembrandt's Jews R E M B R A N D T ' S JEWISH PHILOSOPHER One fine tune away from dullard's gaze, the brown Sephardic eyes pierce worlds on worlds like butterflies...

...while listeners sit transfixed like children, striking up an attitude of face and ear they nevermore would lose: a boy makes pictures in the sand, a turbaned merchant stands with belly out, an old man strokes his gritty jaw, a woman cups the darkness to her chin— they frame their rabbi with attention they were born to, designated since Creation to do and hear, and bring new eras in, with chiaroscuro silence, as though his stories stole in patiently and wrapped them by the dozen, concentrating all their dreams and cares to one still point, a secret they could carry everywhere...