He’s writing this aboard a plane
Suspended in the air
Flying to a certain place
Years back he would not dare
No one, I think, in his right mind
Would simply venture there
Oh, my friends, the world has changed
Bashevkin’s going home
To a world that Torah Jews
Had so long feared to roam
Four hours from Dolghinov
There is a great Red Square
Where terror and pure misery
Would fill the Jews with fear
Oh, yes, the town Dolghinov
His ancestor was born
Would he just see that dreaded land
Or “Never!” had he sworn?
For all across the countryside
Where Torah had once been
Was simply decimated
Since Nineteen Seventeen
His uncles and his aunts were lost
From the world where Torah flourished
But soon they were emaciated
Spiritually malnourished
Just one was saved
He left the town
And went away to learn
And generations Torah filled
That deed it surely earned
Indeed in his own family
The souls were snatched away
An old man in Slabodka
Ensured that he did stay
To Minsk and then to Tzitivian
And then unto these shores
His heart remained attached to those
Behind Iron Curtain’s doors
Yes! Miracles do happen
And often happen fast
The old man from Dolghinov said
The lie it could not last
Yes! Miracles did happen
A flow out did begin
USSR did let them out
And US let them in
And for those Russian children
He fought to open schools
Despite the mocking ridicule
That Torah is for fools
Not long after, all collapsed
Their Union dissipated
The leaders realized
It can’t last
As they capitulated
The old man from Dolghinov
Born on Russian soil
Passed those efforts to his kin
Who did not cease to toil
And when the time came
For revolt
The vision, it was certain
There would be Torah blossoming
Inside an Open Curtain
And so Bashevkin’s going back
To revel in the glory
Of Torah in a world that was
And be part of the story
What drives his passion just to go
And stay nary three days?
Are there emotions in his mind
That motivates his ways?
Perhaps he knows
If not for fate
And Providence Divine
He would have been behind that wall
Behind that thick red line
He’s going back to touch the land
Where he just might have been
And in his heart
He understands
He’s just a Russian kin
