Happy Holidays: Niver’s News: Dec 2022

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Lisa Ellen Niver

December 31, 2022

Dec News 2022 with Lisa Niver & We Said Go Travel:

Happy Festival of Lights! Happy Chanukah! Merry Christmas! Happiest of all the Holidays to YOU! Happy New Year! I hope your 2022 celebrations have brought joy, light and warmth to your heart.

At our house we lit the Chanukah candles and I love how every religion celebrates a festival of lights at this time. We all need HOPE especially when we feel we are alone in the DARKNESS.

Rabbi Yoshi, the head Rabbi at my temple, Stephen Wise, shared these words below from Rabbi Hugo Gryn which he told us, "fill me with hope, especially at this time of year. They were originally shared in 1987 on the BBC's 'The Moral Maze.'" Gryn was born in 1930 in what was then Czechoslovakia. In this piece, entitled "Three Minutes of Hope," Gryn reminds us of just how urgent the lesson of Hanukkah is, now and always.

As I light the menorah in my comfortable London home, surrounded by our children, the oldest of whom is getting married tomorrow, I go back to Hanukkah 42 years ago, the bitter, cold winter of 1944, to a miserable Nazi concentration camp called Lieberose in Silesia. From our less-than-meager rations we saved our margarine, from bits of wood carved out bowls for oil lamps, and out of blanket and uniform threads fashioned wicks of a sort.

Then on the first night of Hanukkah, in our crowded barrack-room (Block 4 it was), the melted fat in its place, we sang the blessings about God’s miraculous saving power. And then disaster! Margarine does not burn! It just fizzled out. And my anger over precious and seemingly wasted calories, and the less than good-natured teasing of non-Jewish fellow prisoners. Though I was then a middle-aged 14-year-old,
I burst into tears. My father, who also saved his rations, and whose idea the celebration was in the first place, and without whose support I would certainly not be alive to tell this tale, tried to comfort me.

"You and I," he said, "have seen that it is possible to live as long as three weeks without food. We once lived almost three days without water. But you cannot live properly for three minutes without hope!"

Sadly, my father did not survive. He died of starvation and typhoid a few days after our liberation the following May. But my life was blessed by his life and you will understand why, to this day, beyond the theology and the history of the Hanukkah lights, there shines for me an image of love, and always the inextinguishable rays.

Thank you to Rabbi Yoshi for his spiritual leadership and my book blessing!

I will be speaking LIVE at America’s Favorite Travel Shows! Come see me at The Travel & Adventure Show in CHICAGO –Jan 14-15 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, NEW YORK CITY – January 28-29 at the Javits Convention Center and LOS ANGELES— February 18-19 at Los Angeles Convention Center!

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Thank you VoyageLA for interviewing me for your Inspiring Stories from West LA!

Thank you to Redfin for including me in your article: Exploring Parks in Long Beach. I shared the best kept secret of the Naples Canals of Long Beach are a network of man-made canals where you can kayak, paddleboard or enjoy a romantic gondola ride.

Are you wondering where to celebrate this holiday season? 8 new Michelin stars were awarded in LA County. I loved the California Reveal Party at Petersen Automotive Museum.

Embed from Getty Images

15th Annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards UNIVERSAL CITY, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 04: Lisa Niver and BJ Korros attend the 15th annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards at Sheraton Universal Hotel on December 04, 2022 in Universal City, California. Photo by Michael Tullberg/Getty Images for Los Angeles Press Club

Thanks to Doritos After Dark for the Winter Solstice PARTY

Articles from my recent adventures at Beaches Turks and Caicos:

Want to scuba dive with sharks, rays and turtles? Meet me at Beaches Turks and Caicos
Can you Trick or TREAT at Beaches? YES! It is the perfect place to celebrate any holiday!
Serenity in the Sand at Beaches Turks and Caicos

Read about my visit to PHILLY for LOVE and HISTORY

Thank you to the Jewish Journal for publishing my articles for twelve years!

WHERE CAN YOU FIND MY TRAVEL VIDEOS?

Here is the link to my video channel on YouTube where I have over 1.7 million views on YouTube! (Exact count: 1,734,000 views)

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