Two poems about Hilltop Youth
by Simcha Bakshiel, translated by Esther Cameron
SOMEWHERE IN THE HILLS
I saw something different,
I saw something new,
I saw something beautiful,
I saw something moving.
I saw youths focused on their goal –
To settle the hill.
No house, no door, no windows,
A structure open to the four winds.
The landscape similar to their souls:
Everything open, everything broad, everything breathing, everything alive.
A moving coordination between the landscape and those youths,
From the landscape they learned the colorful expanse of spirit and feeling.
They aren’t disturbed by the difficulties of the terrain,
The main thing is to live on the hill.
The main thing is to breathe the air of a hill in the land of Israel.
Somewhere on the hill time has no meaning,
They’re not running, no one has a stop-watch,
They are learning to enjoy what there is, what is developing.
They build knowing that at any moment destruction may arrive again and again.
They do not give up,
They are like the baby learning to stand on its feet –
Falling and getting up again, till he’s stable, till they’re settled.
The hill is their refuge.
Where the enemy watches them with intent to hurt,
When the shepherd walks alone in the space with the sheep.
This refuge is where anarchists will come with the enemy,
To support the enemy.
This refuge is where policemen and soldiers will come to evacuate them with violence,
Taking the basic equipment they need to survive in primitive conditions.
And all these paradoxes do not impress them,
Do not affect them.
For somewhere on the hill a whole world is developing,
Growing and being destroyed again and again,
And being rebuilt.
Somewhere on a hill they are building a rectified world, a Jewish world,
With deep roots in earth and soul.
Somewhere on a hill progress has no meaning.
Somewhere on a hill they know what to do and how to do it
In the face of innumerable obstacles.
For somewhere on a hill light and darkness mingle and confront each other
Till the infinite light shall conquer the darkness.
*
THE HILL AND THE YOUTHS
The youths watch the hill from afar.
With a happy heart they say to it quietly:
“Soon we will come and set up an outpost on you.”
The hill smiles at them and gets excited.
“Come, but be aware –
They will come many times to destroy
All that you will build.”
The youths are not afraid:
“They can destroy shacks and fences,
But who can break our spirit?”
The hill is so happy, it answers them:
“I’m waiting for you, come and build.”
And they ascend.
They begin to build little by little, step by step.
No electricity, but the light in their hearts illumines everything.
No heating, but they warm themselves with words of Torah and a small fire.
No beds on the outpost –
They manage with a thin mattress like a royal surface.
No guns, for they are forbidden to carry guns; but faith and alertness are their defense.
They don’t really sleep, either by day or by night.
They tense at every noise. Flashlight in hand, they guard the hill.
They have no “permit” to be here, but they remember the promise
That the Creator of the world gave to Abraham:
“To your seed I will give this land.”
The hill has already been conquered with love.
It knows that there will still be days of destruction,
Blows, humiliations, perhaps arrests.
But it knows that nothing will defeat their devotion to their hill.
Not cold, not rain, not mud, not thorns and not the enemy –
Nothing will change their decision to live here.
Through fire and water, the youths will always return.
The hill and the youths have signed a soul-contract
And on the seal, in letters of gold, is written:
“We will settle the hill to all eternity.”
And from that day
The hill and the youths were never parted.
Posted July 19, 2026
HILLTOP MACCABEES
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