My father built homes for settlers in the West Bank.
For who knew when the next Hitler would rise?
My father would turn the tide like a god,
surprise from a slight five foot nine inch Jew.
He could direct a crew on a building
site, shout in the heat, crack his jokes and grind
his teeth, smoke Winstons, drink Fanta in peace,
wear his favorite belt—the naked woman Emma Goldman-Sherman
carved into the brass buckle to catch anyone
looking, to push some excess shame down
their throats, watch them blush with what he could press
into anyone who brushed past, anyone
he could criticize behind his thick, warped
glasses, his pockets stuffed with his small hands.
Listen to Emma Goldman-Sherman’s Abraham’s Daughters at The Parsnip Ship
Abraham’s Daughters is a mythic play about colonialism and identity. A finalist for the Henley Rose Award, Risk is This at Cutting Ball, and Waterworks, it is available for a world premiere.
Synopsis: Although Abraham is a Jew from Flushing, and he only has one daughter, Maxine, and her only daughter Racie is a lesbian, Abraham still believes he’ll be the Father of Nations. He moves to Tel Aviv in search of his first love, Haajar. When he discovers Haajar’s daughter has five Palestinian Muslim sons, he goes to Nablus in the midst of the first Intifada to claim them as his own.
Emma Goldman-Sherman's plays have been produced on 4 continents and include Abraham's Daughters which is available as a podcast at TheParsnipShip.com. Their poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Toyon (w/Arabic translation), Exist Otherwise, The Mersey Review, Gigantic Sequins, Writers Resist and others. Their award-winning microfiction is anthologized in Best Microfiction 2025 and the Fish Anthology of 2023. They work as a neuro-affirming coach and teach for the Dramatists Guild Institute and PlayPenn. Emma supports writers and artists at bravespace.online. They write about post-traumatic growth at goldmansherman.substack.com.