On Hanukkah 1932, just prior to the elections that would bring Hitler to power, Rachel Posner, wife of Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner, took this photo of the family’s Hanukkah menorah from the window ledge of her home. The view from the window was a building across the road, decorated with Nazi flags.
On the back of the photograph, Rachel Posner wrote in German (translated here):
“Chanukkah, 5692 (1932)
Judea dies, thus says the banner.
Judea will live forever, thus respond the lights.”
The Posner family – and their Hanukkah Menorah – escaped Germany in 1933 and arrived in Eretz Israel in 1934.
Ninety-two years later, the Posner family menorah is on permanent display at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Every year on Hanukkah, Akiva and Rachel Posner’s descendants – some of which are IDF soldiers – continue to light Hanukkah candles using that very same menorah. Where it once stood face to face with swastika flags in Germany, today that menorah bears the symbol of its own nation — a Jewish star, in Israel. The menorah survived and proudly shines with light, while Hitler is but a dark memory.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and committed atrocities and war crimes on par with those of the Nazis. Yet, just two months later, on December 7, 2023, IDF soldiers fighting to defeat Hamas proudly lit a Hanukkah Menorah in Gaza.
From the genocide of the Nazis to the atrocities of Hamas, the Hanukkah Menorah’s lights are kindled, and Judea lives on.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the international director of the Sephardic Educational Center.
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