In Darkness and Light, Amiad Yisrael

The Fellowship  |  December 13, 2018

ISRAEL-RELIGION-JUDAISM-HANNUKAH
A Jewish student from a Yeshiva religious school lights a candle on a menorah during the Jewish holiday of Hannukah, the festival of lights, in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv on December 28, 2016. / AFP / JACK GUEZ (Photo credit should read JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

A tragedy just north of Jerusalem made this Hanukkah season a difficult one, after a terrorist opened fire on a crowd of Jewish people, including a 21-year-old pregnant woman and her husband. The couple were injured, and their baby was born prematurely and died just days after his birth. Yet, even with such darkness, Jessica Levine Kupferberg, writing at the Times of Israel, says that the Jewish community will continue to endure, and will “fight for the light again and again.”

He couldn’t make it as long as the Hanukkah lights did.  He didn’t even get eight days. But in his death, he still joined his people. He still got his name.

Amiad Yisrael hy”d.

The nation of Israel will stay…

The light leeched away from Hanukkah too quickly this year, before we could even put back our menorahs from our grandparents and from kindergarten arts and crafts projects and the ones that were bat mitzvah presents from fancy Judaica stores.  But even as the UN changed the voting rules in the middle of the game so a resolution condemning Hamas — a group who praised this baby’s murder — would fail,  even though we know the terrorists’ families will get paid for targeting a 21-year-old pregnant woman and making her a mother without a baby, and even after the world will condemns us for sadly doing what we need to do to capture those terrorists, we will be here.

Like the Ish-Ran and Silberstein families, we will hold on tight. We will light our Shabbat candles this week and our menorahs again next year and fight for the light again and again and again.

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