Today is National Poem in Your Pocket Day

As National Poetry Month winds down, it seems like a good time to give you an update on the subject of our next upcoming exhibition, A Fire in My Heart: The Story of Hannah Senesh. Known the world over as the author of Eli, Eli, Hannah Senesh came of age as a promising poet in cosmopolitan Budapest. In 1939, she immigrated to the Land of Israel and became a pioneering kibbutznik. In 1943, she volunteered to parachute behind enemy lines to aid Hungary’s embattled Jews, and was executed the following year at the age of 23. Almost immediately, Senesh became a national hero to the fledgling Jewish community in Palestine. Through her diaries, poems, photographs, and few remaining possessions— to be shown at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for the first time—a life extinguished far too soon is revealed.

Roberta Grossman, the filmmaker of Blessed is the Match, the first documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, is creating new films for the exhibition, and Hannah’s nephews David and Eitan Senesh have provided the exhibition team with magnificent artifacts, photos, letters, and journals. The exhibition design is being refined and there is a palpable energy in the air. Whether a member of Education, Public Programs, or Collections and Exhibitions, it is not unusual to hear a colleague relate a new fact or anecdote about Hannah’s life, often while carrying a dog-eared or Post-It noted copy of Hannah Senesh: Her Life and Diary The First Complete Edition.

In honor of the day, here is Hannah’s poem, Blessed is the Match.

Blessed is the match consumed
in kindling flame
Blessed is the flame that burns
in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop
its beating for honor’s sake.
Blessed is the match consumed
in kindling flame.

Written in Sardice, Yugoslavia, May 2, 1944; translated from the Hebrew by Marie Syrkin

Photo courtesy David and Eitan Senesh