Light in the Face of Darkness

Driving my 14-year-old son Henry north from his rural middle school this week, I saw something that broke my heart, again. Spray-painted on the sign of a local business was a swastika. It’s not the first time we've made this terrible discovery. It’s the second. The second time my child has discovered that hateful symbol so close to his school, his home, his world.

This time, as the two of us drove north toward the Federation’s annual Holocaust Survivor program, the weight of that image crept into the corners of my eyes as I held back tears.

When we arrived at the program, more than 1,100 students from 14 different school districts filled Stambaugh Auditorium. They came to listen to a Survivor, to witness, to learn, to remember. And in that moment, sitting among those young people and their teachers, I felt something else stir inside me... hope. Hope that there are still people who will protect my children if they need it. Hope that education and empathy still matter. Hope that, even when darkness rears its head, light continues to spread. As Hanukkah approaches, the light of nostalgia glows within me.

When I was growing up, more than half the people in our town were Jewish. Hanukkah wasn’t something we had to explain. My parents placed our electric hanukkiah proudly in the front window without fear. They hid our presents in the basement rafters (where my brother and I found them every year). Eight boxes appeared on the first night, one for each evening. The year I got my very first CD, Michael Jackson’s “Black or White,” I didn’t have a CD player. I convinced my parents to drive me to my friend Margo’s house to listen to it. They could've saved themselves the trip by telling me that in one of the other boxes was my very first CD player and I just needed to be patient. I guess they knew that patience was never my virtue. Hanukkah felt different back then. Our whole family gathered at my grandma’s house, where the fireplace glowed with fake logs and the windows were sealed with saran wrap to keep the cold out. We exchanged one gift each, the one for the cousin or aunt or uncle whose name we’d drawn at Thanksgiving.

Years later, in Youngstown, I met Wendy Weiss and she shared her Hanukkah tradition, a way to make sure her kids felt that same joy and belonging we did when we were kids. A way for our kids to share their traditions with their friends of other faiths... in that moment, the Little Long's Annual Chanukah Sleepover was born. Every year, my kids’ friends light their own hanukkiah while Henry and Madeline lead the group in this reading from Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks:

“For though my faith is not yours and your faith is not mine, if we each are free to light our own flame, together we can banish some of the darkness in the world.”

Then they spin dreidels and eat latkes and matzo ball soup.

I hope this warmth surrounds my kids each year so when they drive past hateful imagery or are confronted with kids at their school who greet them with the Nazi salute, they know those who spread hate are the minority. I know this to be true because Henry's best friend actually offered to grab paint and cover the hate after proudly proclaiming, “We should knock on that door and tell them, ‘That’s not nice!’” That’s light. That’s courage. That’s the world I still believe in.

May this Hanukkah bring light to all of us, and may we each be brave enough to shine it, wherever darkness appears.