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Hanukkah: A Trust Deed to the Birthplace of Jewish History

(Los Angeles Jewish Journal) Judea Pearl - Hanukkah is our trust deed to the birthplace of our history, more solid even than the ancient synagogues they are excavating in Israel. A continuous collective memory, passed on over 110 generations, is unassailable proof that no one can fake. My mother arrived in Israel in 1935. She said: "The first day after my arrival, I met a neighbor, a teacher who invited me to visit her kindergarten. There I experienced one of the happiest days in my life. Scores of children were standing there loudly singing Hanukkah songs, in Hebrew, as if this was the most natural thing to do, as if they were singing those songs for hundreds of years." "Didn't your family celebrate Hanukkah in Poland?" I asked. She said: "Yes, we lit the candles, but it was in a dark corner, with my father whispering the blessings....You see, the neighbors were Gentile, and he did not feel comfortable advertising that we celebrated a Jewish holiday." Only those who have gone through the exhilarating experience of a people returning to its homeland could truly appreciate the gift that history has bestowed upon the Jews: singing songs of the Maccabee heroes in the language used in Jerusalem 2200 years ago. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem understood that the Jewish immigrants were no crusaders, nor Mongolian invaders, but the original owners of the place. The tragedy is that the Palestinians chose to reject mutual recognition. The writer is Chancellor's professor at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation.
2019-12-30 00:00:00
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