During the Hanukkah season in December of 1931, a Jewish Rabbi’s wife, Rachel Posner, photographed the family’s brass
menorah sitting on the windowsill of their apartment home in the German northern port city of Kiel.
Opposite their home was the recently opened National Socialist Party’s regional headquarters with
a large Nazi swastika flag hanging menacingly.
Rachel took the photo seen above of the menorah and its candles standing in defiance of the looming antisemitic threat beyond. When the camera's film was developed, she wrote those defiant words written in German on the back of the photo.
Less than two years later in 1933, just months after Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party came to power, Rachel Posner, her husband Rabbi Akiva Posner, and their three children: Avraham Chaim, Tova, and Shulamit, fled
Germany for Palestine, taking their menorah with them as they built a
new life.
Their family menorah still survives to this day and is currently on display at the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Israel.
Today, over 90 years later, the ugly specter of antisemitism continues to exist in this world in various forms; threatening God's Chosen People and challenging their faith. Yet, always remember the lesson of the menorah -- that the light will always outshine the darkness.
This post is dedicated to my friends and readers of Jewish faith across the world, wherever y'all are. Have a Chag Urim Sameach (Happy Festival Of Lights) this Hanukkah season, and may each of the eight nights of Hanukkah be filled with warmth and light.
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