A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
Nine Plus One
—after Shayna Herszage
Nine men and one sit at a table.
Nine look at me,
I imagine their vision x-raying me down to the bone,
While I stand there in unwanted nakedness,
Stripped by the coldness of the count,
“There is no table,”
They say.
“Not here.”
Still nine men sit.
Still I, a man but not so, sit too.
Avraham Kolenski
Avraham Kolenski is an Orthodox transgender Jew who lives in the space between worlds that often struggle to make sense of the other. He believes these worlds are not incompatible, as Torah is the inheritance of every Jew. He wrote As Long As I’m Still Breathing as a memoir of overcoming adversity to follow his beliefs.
