Darkness of antisemitism casts a shadow over the festival of lightpublished at 12:18 GMT
Lucy Manning
Special correspondent
A Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach, a Yom Kippur service at
Heaton Park Synagogue, Simchat Torah in Israel on 7 October 2023.
Three Jewish festivals and three deadly attacks on Jewish people
across different continents. The commonality: the desire to murder Jews. It is
an attack that again reverberates across Jewish communities worldwide.
Hanukkah is the Jewish festival of lights, marking the miracle
where the oil to light the Hanukkah lights that should have only lasted one night
lasted for eight nights. It is a time of joy and celebration, a time of
presents and of family, particularly loved by children. It is a time when the
light is supposed to extinguish the darkness. But yet again, the darkness of
antisemitism, of the hatred towards Jews and a murderous intent to kill them,
whatever country they live in, overshadows the community’s festivals.
It will almost certainly be felt by every Jew across the world,
who again today feel less safe.
As in Australia, here in the UK, in cities with Jewish
communities, there will be the public lighting of the Chanukiah (the Hanukkah menorah) which holds the
candles. The Community Security Trust, which helps protect the British Jewish
community, says there are discussions to increase security and policing at Hanukkah events in the UK.
It is also a tradition to place the candles in windows of homes,
to publicly say to the world even in the darkest of times: there is
light.
