The Neila

Jacques Taraboulos

1945

The end of the day approaches.
The Book of Life and Death
is about to be closed,
and the hand of God will inscribe
the destiny of man.
It hesitates, trembles, stops.
A voice, sweet and frail,
an imperceptible murmur,
rises toward the firmament;
it is a young Jew who prays.
His soul, hurled toward Heaven,
reaches the Holy of Holies.
The Ark is…
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Creator Bio

Jacques Taraboulos

1919–2011

Jacques Taraboulos was born in Cairo and studied at the Collegio Rabbinico of Rhodes and at the École rabbinique de Paris. Taraboulos then lived in Elizabethville in the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), where, with Robert Joseph Cohen, he wrote for and published the series Études juives, writing about Jews of the Middle Ages and discussing the religions of the Middle East. The destruction of Jewish lives during the Holocaust affected his outlook, and his poems are collected in the undated work Poèmes tristes (Melancholy Poems).

Related Guide

Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Fiction and Poetry

1939–1973

Jewish literature developed individual rather than collective voices, as postwar Jewish identity was transformed by the forces of modernism and assimilation.

Related Guide

The Holocaust: Years of Catastrophe

1939–1945

Jewish writing in Nazi-occupied areas documented ghetto life, moral questions, and Jewish identity, while writers in free zones grappled with the unfolding tragedy.

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