In Clermont County, right outside of the 275 loop, just three Jewish families live among the farms or along the Ohio River in an area where few Jewish people have settled.

The poet Dick Westheimer and Deb, his wife of 45 years, are one of these families; and I have been fortunate enough to cross paths with him, although so far only virtually, at poetry readings and the Mercantile Library.

A Jewish Life Beyond the City Limits

Dick and his wife, Deb, moved to the Batavia area in 1976, where they purchased property with the desire to live a self-sustaining life like that of the earth-conscious folks of the early seventies. That didn’t work out as planned, but Dick and Deb raised five children on this property and now welcome their grandchildren to play in the creek and help out with the 8000 square feet of gardens and berries they maintain. At 72, Dick says that they are scaling back on this “year by year.” 

However, he also shares that, “We maintain about a mile of trails in our second-growth woods and the sustainable prairie we are working on establishing with the assistance of the Cincinnati Nature Center.” When asked if he was familiar with the American Jewish movement to return to the land that began roughly 100 years ago, and included a family that settled in New Richmond, Dick was not, and my guess is this is true of many Jews, but what the Westheimers are doing certainly harkens back to those days, and preserving land for future generations is a beautiful example of Tikkun Olam.

Sustainability, Social Justice, and a Life of Purpose

Dick is a man of many talents and interests, who not just speaks up against injustice but is committed to hands-on work to make society better. Aside from the work his property requires, he holds a PhD in Educational Policy and says, 

“I currently serve on the board of Q-Kidz, a West End-based organization dedicated to creating a safe space for girls from the community to thrive. I so admire what the founders (and their girls) have accomplished, and [I’m] honored to get to work with them. I have previously served on various boards, most recently boards ranging from Planned Parenthood to MORTAR to the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, and have continued to be active in Cincy Shakes’ effort to expand its audience to look more “like Cincinnati” vis-à-vis its diversity. Both Deb and I have participated in public protest events (like No Kings and an event standing up for Ayman Soliman).” Additionally,” for activities I enjoy, I (of course), go to as many poetry readings as my schedule allows (Cincinnati has a thriving compliment of in-person poetry events), attend theater productions (mostly at Cincy Shakes), try to catch a few soccer matches, and hope to get back to jamming with my bluegrass buddies on a regular basis.”

The Poet Among the Blackberries

And there is, of course, his poetry. Dick has been published in numerous literary journals and is an active participant in poetry organizations like Yetzirah Poetry. He writes poems on the full spectrum of life, from his experiences with the natural world around him, to love poems, to current events, the latter of which are written with the urgency that only someone who cares so deeply about those who are dispossessed by those in power can write.

When asked what it means for him to be a poet, he states, “Poetry is the art of everyday folks and is practiced and appreciated by, and a necessity for, people all over the world. Poems were etched into the boards of boxcars on the way to Auschwitz, written with burnt sticks onto the walls of chimneys in Warsaw. Poems are written by captives in Guantanamo, [poems] are being penned by Gazans from their makeshift tents. They are composed by collections of women in their kitchens in Iran. There are way more monuments to and statues of poets in Ukraine and Ireland (and many other countries) than generals. Poetry is people’s art and has been since the time of the psalmists. I love being part of that community. Equally important, writing and reading poetry taps into a place in my brain that circumvents rhetoric. In a world where having an opinion about a matter defines one’s tribe, poetry is the language of ordinary experience.  It reveals rather than confirms one’s deepest feelings. I LOVE being surprised by writing to an unexpected end.”

Dick began writing poetry less than ten years ago, spurred on by the 2016 election. “We are so fortunate here in the region to have a rich community of talented and accomplished Appalachian poets,” Dick says. “Both the music of their words (spoken and written) and their bent towards inclusion and hospitality made poetry a welcoming home for me.”

Looking for ways to fill his time during the worst of the pandemic, Dick became involved in multiple regional poetry groups. A true citizen of the world, Dick then expanded out to join groups that include poets from “Nigeria, the Philippines, Switzerland, India, Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and, of course, all over the US!”

Poetry, Judaism, and the Power of Questions

While Dick has written on specific Jewish themes, such as his poem “Fading Light on the Eighth Night,” published in Minyan Magazine, many of his works may not seem to have a Jewish theme. 

When asked if Judaism influences his work in poems like “Natural Selection,” published in Only Poems, he provides a thoughtful answer. “For me, Judaism and poetry are both more interested in questions than answers. Matthew Zapruder (another secular Jew who is a poet), in “Why Poetry,” writes, “Maybe poems are not to be read [and written] for their great answers, but for their great, more often than not unanswerable, questions.”

“Jewish practice relies on interpreting text and breathing life into it rather than translating it. Torahic Hebrew has no vowels (the breath letters), so every time you hear someone read from Torah, they are, like one does when reading poems, trying to experience the breath of the redactor,” he said. “And whenever I’ve been with folks considering a line of text, they are always ‘wrestling’ (thus the word Israel from Genesis 32) with its meaning. This is very much like the practice of writing and reading poetry. Text is to be contended with, not passively encountered.”

Living Jewishly in a Rural World

While it’s clear Dick leads a busy and fulfilling life in Clermont County, it hasn’t always been easy living Jewishly in such a homogenous area. Dick relates that of his five children, two attended local public schools. While his son Nate won points with his high school classmates by hosting a Chanukkah party with the help of his parents, his daughter was unfortunately singled out by a teacher for being Jewish. In recent years, due to the political climate, there was discussion about removing the mezuzah from their door, but they ultimately decided to leave it in place. There have also been some rather unusual questions asked of him, such as wondering how Jews do their sacrifices now since the temples are destroyed. But Dick has handled these situations as opportunities to teach and share so that Jewish people seem less “alien” to those who had never met a Jewish person before.

When asked what inspires him as a poet, Dick says, “Poet William Blake begins his poem, Auguries of Innocence, “To see a world in a grain of sand…” The whole message for me in that line is that everything is (or can be) inspiring. Poetry is often about making surprising connections between otherwise unlike things, and I find those connections everywhere. I am somewhat of a nerd, so I often find that images from the great space telescopes and stargazing through my telescope are inspiring. But I also find a frog caught in a fence in my garden or a single blackberry or a walnut dropping on our tin barn roof…you get the idea.”

Explore More of Dick Westheimer’s Poetry

To read some of Dick Westheimer’s poetry, follow the links below.
https://www.onlypoems.net/poets/dick-westheimer/poems
https://dickwestheimer.com
https://www.minyanmag.com/dickwestheimer.html