If I forget thee, O Tantura, let my right eye wither,

For having witnessed the beauty of your beaches,

But not the village that once stood by the sea

Among pottery shards and murex shells

And white lilies and sea-lavender and crimson kalaniot

And little round stones sitting atop big flat stones,

That my people once recognized as graves.

אם אשכחך טנטורה תשכח עיני,

שראיתי את יופי חופך,

אבל לא את הכפר שפעם עמד ליד הים

עם שברי חרס וצדפי ארגמונים

ושושנים לבנים ועדעדים וכלניות אדומות

ואבנים עגולים קטנים שיושבים על אבנים שטוחים גדולים,

שפעם עמי הכיר אותם כקברות.

Tantura was a Palestinian Arab village on the Mediterranean coast in the north of Israel-Palestine. In May 1948, the Alexandroni Brigade of the Haganah, a paramilitary organization that merged into the IDF less than a week later, destroyed Tantura and massacred an unknown number of men. Today, there is only a single Arab-majority locality on the Mediterranean coast of Israel, the village of Jisr az-Zarqa, where many of Tantura’s women and children were relocated to. What was once Tantura is now the beach of Chof Dor, an unassuming rocky shoreline bordered by turquoise waves. I visited almost a year ago, inspiring this poem. When Jews visit a cemetery, we lay a small stone on the gravestone as a memorial that can’t wilt or fade. I wish I had left a stone. May their memory be a blessing — Yehi Zikhronam Barukh.

Shayne Cytrynbaum is a staff writer for the Nassau Weekly.