She was ninety seven; arthritic, nearly blind,
when a madman with a rifle took her life before her time.
She was praying in the synagogue and, with her dying breath,
She performed a Mitzvah- one that we must not forget.
She fell victim to a hatred that won’t seem to die out.
In Russia there were Pogroms; in Germany, Kristallnacht.
If we thought such hatred was extinct; that the ovens had gone cold
We underestimate the hatred that still smolders in men’s souls.
It sparked to life in Pittsburgh;Eleven lives it claimed.
Antisemitism's ugliness is now our nation’s shame.
As she lay there bleeding, awaiting her own end,
She whispered with her dying breath;

“No Lord, not again!”