The nightmare in Iraq continues to worsen. Thousands of Yazidis have died and face genocide. Here is the impassioned plea of Yazidi Iraqi Member of Parliament Vian Dakhil. One stanza of this prayer is adapted from “Bring Back Our Girls,” another prayer against the assault of terror against innocents.

For the Yazidi People
On a mountain,
Isolated
And left to die
While the world watches,
A slaughter of innocents.

Barren,
Desolate,
A landscape of death,
A heartbreak of hunger and thirst,
A graveyard of children.

Oh Yazidi people,
We pray for the hand of G-d’s mercy
To come to your aid,
To relieve your suffering,
To drive away the evil
That has pursued you
To the top of the world.

Oh people of conscience,
Cry out.
Cry out against holocaust.
Cry out against genocide.
Cry out against hatred.
For G-d requires us to stand
In the name of justice and freedom:
To oppose terror,
To muster our power and energy
To save the persecuted and oppressed.

Oh G-d,
We implore You,
Look down upon the suffering
Perpetrated in so many lands
By the hand of wickedness,
By the hand of malevolence,
By the hand of ignorance and sin.
Save the Yaidi.
Rescue all in need.
Bring the light of salvation
And healing
To the four corners of the earth.

© 2014 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Please also see: “Bring Back Our Girls” and “For the Women of Congo and Sudan.” More prayers for social justice prayers appear in Haggadah Companion: Meditations and Readings.

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Photo Source: The Deacon’s Bench