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The Menorah that Outlasted the Swastika
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Tuesday, December 11, 2018
 

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

It was 1931--the eighth night of Hanukkah in Kiel, Germany, a small town with a population of 500 Jews.

And that night provided one of the most memorable photographs ever taken of a menorah.

As Rabbi Akiva Boruch Posner lit the eight lights on the candelabra, his wife Rachel snapped a picture of the menorah glowing brightly in the window. Across the way, in view of the menorah was Adolph Hitler’s Nazi headquarters, the red, black and white flag bearing the swastika hanging from the balcony.

 “Chanukah 5692,” Rachel Posner wrote on the back of the photograph, noting the number of years since the Jews’ first Hanukkah, when they had found enough oil to keep their sacred light burning after taking back their temple from the Greeks.

“ ‘Judea dies,’ says the banner,” she continued writing in German. Then she wrote emphatically, “Judea lives forever.”

Rabbi Mendel Lifshitz of Chadbad Lubavitch of Idaho recounted the story as he and a small circle of Jewish and non-Jewish leaders prepared to light a six-foot menorah at Ketchum Town Square. The lighting commemorated the eight-day observance, which ended Sunday night.

“When we come into the community it’s about building, tolerance, empathy and understanding—even on freezing nights like this one,” he told about 50 people who had assembled in the bitter cold as night fell. “We warm each other’s hearts.”

When Rachel Posner wrote the inscription, she was noting that those waving the Nazi flag wished to see the death of Judea. But, she said, “Judea will always survive and our light will outlast their flag,” observed Rachel’s grandson Yehudah Mansbuch.

Both the photo and the menorah survived Hitler’s attempt to wipe out the Jewish people, Lifshitz noted. The Posners managed to flee Kiel to Palestine in 1934.And their farsightedness saved an entire community, as only eight of the 500 Jews under their care perished.

The menorah is now at Yad Vashem—the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem—where it’s taken out once a year to be lit by Mansbuch and his family before being returned.

“Tonight as we light the menorah in Ketchum, a menorah stands at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin,” Lifshitz said, noting that menorahs were being lit around the world. “It stands as a light of kindness for everyone.

“If you want to be a beacon of peace, remember the Hanukkah menorah,” he added. “A little candle lights up the night. A little light lights up the darkness.”

The menorah that stood on the stage of Ketchum Town Square featured holders for eight candles, representing how oil enough to keep the sacred light burning for one day miraculously lasted eight days until new undefiled olive oil could be produced.

A ninth candle holder loomed above the others. This was the servant’s candle meant to serve the others and used to light all the other candles, Lifshitz said.

With that in mind, he invited Ketchum Mayor Neil Bradshaw and Ketchum Police Chief Dave Kassner to light the menorah, along with Blaine County Commissioner Jacob Greenberg and Rabbi Robbi Sherwin and Sue Green, leaders of the Wood River Jewish Community.

“The Jewish people kept hope alive and hope kept the Jewish people alive,” said Greenberg.

A handful of police officers watched the ceremony--the heightened security in response to the shooting last month at a synagogue in Philadelphia.

But Sue Green, who heads up the Wood River Jewish community, spoke with pride of the Wood River Valley.

“This is one of the kindest most supportive communities we could be in,” she told listeners.

The group adjourned to potato latkes and chocolate donuts that were a mite frozen despite oil lamps that had been lit underneath them.

But the night proved warmer on Sunday as the Jewish community gathered at the American Legion Hall in Ketchum, singing Hanukkah songs in a blend of Yiddish and Spanish.

“May each lit candle cast a warmth and a glow over your home this season to light both your home and your heart,” the youth intoned. “May the lights of Hanukkah usher in a better world for all of humankind.”

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