WORK IN PROGRESS

BARUCH LEV

There were no decorations with diamonds on the uniforms of the British Army's Jewish Brigade. Only Stars of David on shoulder patches. On The Day of Liberation, during freedom's first exuberant hours, Concentration Camp survivors, seeking to identify their saviors, staggered from their barracks to reach out with fleshless arms and cadaverous fingers to caress the Stars on the uniforms of tall, well-fed Sabras, Israeli-born soldiers overwhelmed by a parade of the walking dead shuffling through barbed wire to be embraced by warriors who put down their weapons and sobbed without restraint. Then, as if in an orchestrated resurrection, a thousand trembling voices cried out and chanted in a swelling chorus rising to a roar of celebration - a prayer of exultation: "Shema Yis-rael, Adonai Eluhainu, Adonai Echod! - Here, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!"