A Shockingly Timely 70+ Year Old Article
Dear Friends,
“Our beautiful Festival of Lights—Hanukah—comes to us this year at a time of grave concern and anxiety over the troubles besetting the people and State of Israel.”
So begins a shockingly timely article by Hakham Dr. Isaac Alcalay, the Chief Rabbi of Yugoslavia, the Central Sephardic Communities of America, and Sephardic Home for the Aged, found in The Sephardi (Kislev 5714/1953).
Part of a collection of historic documents recently donated to the American Sephardi Federation’s National Sephardic Library & Archives by Hakham Rabbi Dr. Marc Angel, the cache also includes:
- >the US Declaration of Independence in Ladino,
- >a blessing from Hakham Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel for the Federation’s “active part in the Jewish renaissance and cooperation with our Ashkenazic brethren in the realization of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine,” and
- >a report on the Federation’s diplomatic efforts to “ameliorate the conditions of the Jews in Islamic countries” in 1945/6!
As if ripped from today’s headlines, R’Alcalay writes how “[t]he fierce struggle of our people for self-preservation in an area surrounded by treacherous and conspiring enemies is further aggravated by the undeserved censure of well-meaning friends….”
Unlike today, however, R’Alcalay does not indulge in victimhood signaling, self-pity, and divisiveness:
Jewish history teaches us that our people have always succeeded in… overcoming the gravest adversities and severest disasters in their national life…. through an undaunted fighting spirit and admirable heroic exertion. And Hanukah is here as a living example bearing testimony to the truth of this unique phenomenon of a living, pulsating and progressing Israel among the nations of the world.
Indeed, the first Hanukkah “had historic repercussions of world-wide portent.” Against the Seleucids’ overwhelming numerical and technological superiority, the Maccabees’ resourcefulness and resilience in the fight for freedom over pagan tyranny achieved a “glorious victory for Judaism…. The Jewish people were now free to further cultivate and foster the hallowed tenets of their Torah and their tradition.”
Bringing us back to the future, R’Alcalay concludes:
The adversities confronting Jewry today in Israel and elsewhere are not unlike those faced by our ancestors. But Hanukah is here to remind us that ‘Netztch Yisrael lo yeshaker,’ [1 Samuel 15:29] that the Eternal will again inspire Israel, lending its people strength and grim determination to cope with and overcome the grave obstacles placed on their path to glorious achievements for themselves and civilized mankind. Like Hanukah, a restored Zion shall become a beacon light guiding the Jewish people and the nations of the world towards peace, love and justice.
R’Alcaly’s inspiring message, rooted in Classic Sephardic Judaism, encapsulates the work of the American Sephardi Federation on campuses coast-to-coast, within Jewish communal circles, in the American conversation, and in countries around the world.
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- >Celebrate the vibrancy of Israel, and
- >Empower the next generation of Sephardi scholars and leaders
“Towards peace, love, and justice,”
Hanukkah Sameah,
Executive Director, American Sephardi Federation
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Top Picture: An Oded Halahmy Hanukkah Lamp lighting up the darkness of a former palace of Saddam Hussein, Baghdad, Iraq, 2003 (Photo courtesy of U.S. Army Major and later US Special Envoy to Monitor & Combat Antisemitism Elan Carr)
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Hanukkah Candle Lighting in the Meir Tweig Synagogue, Baghdad, Mid-1990s
Watch rare video footage of Iraq’s last Jews praying the Meir Tweig, the only functioning synagogue by the mid-1990s in a city (Baghdad) that once was home to more than 45 synagogues.