Christmas Folksong
16th century

based on what Christians understand as a prophecy in Isaiah 11
A shoot will come up
from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots
a branch will bear fruit

1. Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
Aus einer Wurzel zart.
Wie uns die Alten sungen,
Aus Jesse kam die Art
Und hat ein Blümlein bracht,
Mitten im kalten Winter,
Wohl zu der halben Nacht.

2. Das Röslein das ich meine,
Davon Jesaias sagt:
Maria ist's, die Reine,
Die uns das Blümlein bracht.
Aus Gottes ew'gen Rat
Hat sie ein Kind geboren
Wohl zu der halben Nacht.

3. Das Blümelein so kleine,
Das duftet uns so süß,
Mit seinem hellen Scheine
Vertreibt's die Finsternis.
Wahr' Mensch und wahrer Gott,
Hilf uns aus allem Leide,
Rettet von Sünd' und Tod.

SongGame 2007_12_29
German&Hebrew Canons

One who escaped came and told Avram the Hebrew-
he was dwelling by the Oaks of Mamre...
When Avram heard that his brother had been taken prisoner...
... he returned his brother Lot and his property, and also the women and folks.
...
Now Malki-Tzedek, king of Shalem,
brought out bread and wine,
- for he was priest of God Most-High,
and gave him blessing and said;
Blessed be Avram by God Most-High,
Founder of Heaven and Earth!
And blessed be God Most-High,
who has delivered your oppressors into your hand!
He gave him a tenth of everything.
Genesis 14: 13-21 , translation of Everett Fox

The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent:
'Thou [David] art a priest for ever
after the manner of Melchizedek.'
Psalm 110:4

Shabbat, October 30, 2010 - an e-mail with the subject "Your Grandmother's Grave"

Shalom to Regina and your family and to my children and your families!

You all agree, that the encounter of the second generation of Maria Guth was a blessing for everyone.

What I want to point out now, is the experience in the Templers' graveyard, where your grandmother is buried.

7 years ago, 2003, I noted beneath some photographs: "this was probably the last time I visited Mutti's grave".
Now, all of a sudden, I visited it 3 times within 2 weeks.
First in the early morning (6:30) of Friday, Oct. 15, alone - just to find out, if my key still fitted.
Then - after the brit of Tamir's son (birth>brit>burial...) - together with Regina, Ralf, Domi and Tina.
This time I had forgotten the key in the car, but when we came , the gate was wide open.
Inside we found a man, the guard and guide Meir Aaron, a Messianic Jew, as he informed me.
He was utterly perplex, even elated, when I told him, that The cross+David-Star was my mother's grave.

"For 10 years I've been telling the many groups that come here, and which always wondered about this symbol:
I don't know who Maria Guth (he said Guthe) was, but of one thing I'm sure: she loved Israel.!"

He suggested to restore the iron sculpture, which is eaten away by rust.
He also suggested to plant 2 rose-bushes,
(he doesn't know, that only this year, in February, I planted 3 rose-bushes in Arad,
in honor of my 3 Rosen-Zweig children...),
and this in addition to the two geranium shrubs which he himself planted years ago,
(they are different from the one I planted myself,
a geranium which I planted in Ramat-Hadar in 1964, then transferred it Ramat-Gan in 1981,
then to the gardens of each of you three children, and finally from Micha's garden to Arad).

I began to grasp, that the grave-sculpture is there not only in memory of our mother
(Ursel, when - in a letter - I proposed that drawing of mine:
"Yes that's symbolizing our mother: She had a Christian daughter and she had a Jewish daughter") ,
but has meaning for many more people.
Since I had spent 1 1/2 hours with the rest of the extremely interesting graves,
and since Meir showed us also the split-off part of the cemetery,
with the graves of the original Templers - all from my home-country in and around Stuttgart...
and since I was driven to study the achievements of these German settlers in the Holy Land,
which is strikingly parallel to the achievements of the first generations of Zionist settlers,
I became more and more connected to the meaning of your Christian grandmother's grave in Jerusalem.

When I told Yanina about the experience in the graveyard, she said spontaneously:
"I want to go there with you and think about your and my mother (murdered in the holocaust),
and Marisha, the Polish woman, to whom I owe my live and for whom I've planted a tree
in the "Garden of the Righteous among the Nations at Yad -ve-Shem" [see Wikipedia].
In the 45 years of our friendship we've never done something together just the two of us...,
We fixed a Friday, the only day she is "free", when I would be in Shoham,
which was yesterday, October 29.

And again something unexpected happened, which had never happened since 1985.
2 weeks before, when I was there alone and then with Regina's family,
I was stunned by a huge painting on one wall, with continous scenes from Creation till The Flood.
Now, when we stood in front of it - after having visited Maria Guth's grave - and I explained Yanina,
what we were seeing and how the painter interpreted the stories which are so extremely relevant for me,
suddenly an American woman was approaching us, Patricia, of the hippie-generation in the sixties.
"I am the painter, I started it a year ago, and it's going to cover the entire wall till the time of Jesus.
I can only work during several months, when it's neither too cold nor too dry."
She then asked something about my mother, and I was surprised, and so was Yanina,
that I said something, I had never even thought about before:
My mother, as terrible as her behavior was in general, never ever said anything against Jews.
On the contrary, she told me, why an outbreak of antisemitism on my father's side,
almost brought their engagement to an end.
This was in such contrast to almost every German Christian at that time,
including my brother and my sister, who said some nasty things to me against Jews.
So Meir Aaron is right after all: "the only thing I know about Maria Guth, is,
that she must have loved Israel!"

Yanina enjoyed this experience so much, that it didn't matter to her,
that we had no time anymore to go to Yad-va-Shem .

I then fixed with Meir, that in January we would carry out the restauration and the planting,
so that perhaps on February 20, 2011, 26 years after Maria Guth's death in Israel
our family , at least the family in Israel, will gather around that Jewish-Christian symbol....
How strange, that not only the Jewish grandmother of my children is buried in Germany,
but even your father is not buried in Israel and, as you, Micha, told me now,
not even his name on the tombstone is spelled in Hebrew.

The attachments show a composition, which I've created now,
- I hope all of you enjoy it, though not all of you are visible on it.

AGain: I'm so happy and content (in Hebrew: I have such "nakhat"),
that there was such a connection and communication between all of you!

Rachel, Imma

To this letter I attached
a few compositions,
see the originals and subtitles
on the first page
of the "Graveyard-Sequence"