Rabbi Cooper's Letters

A Chanukkah Message from Rabbi Cooper

November 29, 2018 / 21 Kislev 5779

Dear Friends,

On Sunday night, we shall usher in the joyous festival of Chanukkah.  At the darkest time of the year, we light the Chanukkah candles each night as we tell stories, gather with friends and enjoy the traditional jelly-filled doughnuts,  sufganiot, (indulging more than we should, while using Jewish Tradition as our excuse to veer off of our perpetual diets). I write, in advance of the Holiday, to wish you a Happy Chanukkah from Israel, the place where the story of Chanukkah takes place.  And it is here that Lori and I wait for the arrival of our sixth Israeli grandchild.  Despite the fact that my daughter’s due-date is today, and we had all thought that we would have an early arrival, we expect him now to arrive as our greatest Chanukkah gift and personal Chanukkah miracle!

As we light the candles this year, however, I feel compelled by current events to present another, more sobering message. On Chanukkah we are enjoined to publicize the Chanukkah miracle, pirsumei nissa, in the language of the Talmud, by placing the candles in a place from which they can be seen from the outside.    It is from this injunction that public celebrations, particularly as promoted by my friends from “Chabad”, are sanctioned and encouraged.  Ironically, history has taught us to be careful in bringing Jewish life into the public square. Yet, Chanukkah requires it.  And the question is: why? 

The story of Chanukkah, you see, is the story of the Jewish People.   It is the story of oppression and prejudice; it is the story of mighty nations which have determined that they and, by extension, the world would be better off without us.  And it is the story of Jewish survival.  The story of Chanukkah is the story of Egyptian task masters, of Roman torturers, of Crusades, Inquisitions, pogroms and the Shoah.  Chanukkah is the story of the miracle of Jewish survival.  When our candles are visible from the outside, they remind, not only us but the world, that the little light they thought they could blow out still burns.  It is a reminder to the world that those who wanted to destroy us have, themselves, been destroyed.  None of those scheming empires, which planned our extermination, has survived.    

But, even more, those candles burn as reminders to us that, as the world turns, that story is renewed in every generation.  This was one of the messages we learned a month ago from the events which transpired in Pittsburgh.  And this is the message which continues to reverberate today.

Consider the following:

1. 1. This week, Airbnb informed us that that they would no longer list rental properties located in the disputed areas of Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank of Israel.  Of course, Airbnb concedes that the situation in these territories is complicated and that each of the world’s complicated situations must be considered separately.  But with all of those other complicated situations [Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara (a particularly brutal occupation), or homes in Cyprus occupied by Turkey, or the occupation of Kashmir and Tibet...the list goes on], Airbnb does not have a problem.  Only Israel is blacklisted.  This policy of Airbnb is nothing short of today’s most recognizable form of anti-Semitism.  Don’t use Airbnb until a full, sincere and unwavering apology is offered.
   2. It is interesting that, at the same time that Airbnb made its pronouncement against Israel, The Palestinian Authority sentenced two Palestinians to 15 years of hard labor for selling land to Jews.  Airbnb should take note of the similarities between its policies and those of the PA.
   3. The results of a CNN poll about European attitudes toward Jews were also made public yesterday.  That poll reveals that:
      1. 20% of Europeans say that Jews have too much influence worldwide.
      2.  A survey taken in seven European countries finds that over a third of those polled know little or nothing of the Shoah.                                                                   
      3. 32% say that Jews use genocide’s memory to advance their own interests.

Suffice to say, we usher in the Holiday of Chanukkah in a world that continues to be hostile to our people, a world that judges harshly only Israel while others remain untainted. We are living in a world in which the nations of the world, in silent acquiescence, listen as one nation identifies Israel as a melanoma to be burned from the face of the world, a nation which must be destroyed. We live in the same world which orchestrated the mass murder of six million Jews just 70 years ago, a world which now has trouble remembering what happened only a few generations ago, but a world which does remember the stereotypes and hateful caricatures which led to that destruction.

As Lori and I prepare to usher into our family, and into the world, a new child, I would like to think that the world into which he is born will be a kinder, gentler, safer and more truthful world than the world in which we are living. But that prayer, I must say, has little chance of being realized.  Instead, I pray that the small Chanukkah flames in the windows of the Jewish People around the world will serve as reminders, if not to the world than to ourselves, that the story of Chanukkah, which has been told countless times in the past, will repeat itself.  But we should also recall that the little flame still burns.  Though I cannot expect a radical shift in the world’s hostility toward Israel, I can pray for the power of faith to help a new generation of Jews persevere.  I can pray for the power of truth, even when the rest of the world denies it.  I can pray for the power of hope, which has sustained us in the past and, God willing, will sustain Jewish children yet to come.

Happy Chanukkah from Israel,

Rabbi Neil S. Cooper