An Inspirational Hanukkah Message Still Relevant Today

 

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. 

Central Powers Soldiers Celebrating Hanukkah on the Eastern Front in 1916

Jewish soldiers of the Central Powers of the German and Austrian-Hungary Empires
celebrating Hanukkah together on the Eastern Front in 1916 during the middle of World War I.
Photo courtesy of the S. Ajnwojner Collection at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Photographer unknown.

This outstanding historical group photo shows a gathering of Jewish soldiers of the World War I Central Powers serving in the armies of the German Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire celebrating the eighth day of Hanukkah (Wednesday, December 27, 1916) somewhere on the Eastern Front in Poland (or possibly Ukraine) in what was then the Russian Empire.

Since Jewish soldiers were scattered in relatively small numbers throughout the forces and there were so few Feldrabbiner (Field Rabbis) to serve them, the men would often have to travel a long way to celebrate their major festivals in heterogeneous groups like this one.

The Hanukkah Menorah in the center is being held by both a German Landsturm soldier on the right and a Austro-Hungarian soldier on the left to show the unity of the two empires placed on top a pile of snow with the Hebrew inscription "Hanukkah, 1916" written in coal.

On the left side of the Menorah is a Austro-Hungarian nurse who has the red and white Austrian ribbon for the Decoration for Services to the Red Cross on her coat. On the right side of the Menorah is a German volunteer field rabbi one of about 30 such individuals to serve with the German armies during World War I -- the Star of David can be seen on his field cap.

An estimated 100,000 German Jewish military personnel served in the German Army during World War I, of whom 12,000 were killed in action and an estimated 35,000 received accolades for their service -- including 18,000 were awarded the German Iron Cross. In the Austro-Hungarian army its estimated that about 300,000 Jewish men served with distinction.

Posted here on this site in eternal memory so that these men and their service and loyalty to their countries shall never be forgotten.

For all my Jewish readers worldwide, I would like to wish all of y'all a Chag Hanukkah Sameach!