By Denise Etheridge
I initially awoke in a cheerful mood last Sunday in anticipation of the first night of Chanukah.
We planned to make latkes for dinner before lighting the first candle on our menorah. I had gifts wrapped in white, blue and silver for my children and granddaughter. We hid the chocolate gelt (coins) in a drawer until we were ready for a game of dreidel. Alexa would be given instructions to play Chanukah music.
And we did perform these joyful rituals, enjoying the start to the Festival of Lights. But we also mourned the loss of our fellow Jews. Again.
My cell phone dinged a news notification even before my alarm went off. It's a bad habit, but being a newshound, I checked.
At last count 15 people died and up to 40 were wounded in a terrorist attack on the Australian Jewish community. Families had gathered to light a giant menorah the first night of Chanukah on Bondi Beach in Sydney. It's mid-summer there now.
Rather than cower and hide most Jewish communities here and overseas are standing with their brethren in Australia. Public Chanukah celebrations continue with tightened security. Chabad of Hall County held its annual menorah lighting in Gainesville on Sunday. They also plan to hold one on Dec. 21, the last night of Chanukah, in Flowery Branch. We attended last year.
In an email sent to North Georgia's Jewish residents, Rabbi Nechemia Gurevitz, who heads the local Chabad center, wrote that coming together is more important now than ever:
“Chanukah teaches us that even a small flame can push back great darkness. It teaches us not to give in to fear, but to respond with faith, compassion and resolve. It also reminds us that darkness pursues us, pursues light, because our existence literally diminishes its existence.”
The story at the center of Chanukah is about the Maccabean revolt against the larger, more powerful army of the Seleucid Greeks. This regime under King Antiochus IV tried to stamp out Judaism from 167 to 160 B.C.E. by banning Jewish learning and practices and forcefully assimilate the Jewish people into Hellenism. Many Jews were killed when they refused to bow to Greek gods.
The story of Chanukah recounts that the Seleucids desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem by sacrificing pigs – an unclean animal according to Jewish law – and erecting an altar to Zeus. These invaders also destroyed all but one small jar of oil used to light the Temple menorah. This oil was only enough to last for one day, but the miracle was that the menorah burned for eight days.
With the rise of Jew-hatred across the globe, and many Jews outside of Israel feeling unsafe in their own countries including the U.S., Chanukah is even more relevant today.
Denise Etheridge is the managing editor of the White County News.