ISRAEL BEN MOSHE VE-KEINE

בס"ד

9th of Tevet

Irving Layton is dead. Leonard Cohen, who was one of his pall bearers & proteges, spoke of this man who inspired his own art with great affection.

"There is Irving Layton, & then there are the rest of us", he said. "He is our greatest poet, our greatest champion of poetry".

Another great Canadian, another great Jew, we say goodbye to. A controversial man who grew up in the same Montreal slums as Mordecai Richler. A man who shocked the puritanical public out of its slumber with his free sexual prophecies on paper. & no wonder. He had been born "naturally circumcised", without a foreskin, a traditional mark of the Messiah.

Instead of saving the World, however, he grew up to transform Western social consciousness & artistic expression, almost winning a Nobel Prize for Literature.

"...there is no pain in the graveyard...rejoice...rejoice..."

Good night, Irving. Sleep well.