The children’s book ‘The Christmas Menorahs’ tells the inspiring tale of a community that came together in solidarity 30 years ago.
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You can display a menorah for Hanukkah, for Christmas, for winter, for peace
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When you open your Times Leader on Wednesday, you will find a full-page picture of a menorah, suitable for cutting out and displaying in a window — and the Times Leader invites you to do just that, in time for the beginning of the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah, which begins this year on Thursday evening, Dec. 7.
Now, many readers might be puzzled. They might say, “Why should I display a picture of Hanukkah candles? That’s a Jewish holiday, and I’m not Jewish.”
Well, neither were most of the residents of Billings, Mont., 30 years ago, when they stood in solidarity with their Jewish neighbors by displaying their own paper menorahs — some of them crafted by children; many others printed by the Billings Gazette.
The story of “The Christmas Menorahs,” as a 1995 children’s book by Janice Cohn described them, begins with a boy named Isaac Schnitzer who displayed a Hanukkah menorah in his bedroom window at his home in Billings, in December 1993.
Someone hurled a rock through the window, shattering glass and Isaac’s peace of mind, as well as that of his parents. Did this mean someone hated them? Did it mean no one cared?
But people in Billings did care, with leaders from various churches sharing the idea that their members could display menorahs, and with the local newspaper also getting involved.
“The message to haters was, if you want to smash the windows displaying menorahs, here’s 50,000 of them,” a recent editorial in the Billings Gazette reminisced as it looked back at the “Not In Our Town” movement that began there 30 years ago.
If you delve into the story of “The Christmas Menorahs,” you’ll hear people from Billings’ Christian majority ask each other how they would feel if rocks or bricks came through their windows just because they had a Christmas tree.
You’ll hear a teacher ask a classroom of children if they’ve ever known anyone who was bullied for being different in any way.
Inspired by the story of “The Christmas Menorahs,” Northeast Pennsylvania residents Rabbi Eric Mollo and Elly Miller, who is a descendant of Holocaust victims, suggested that, as anti-Semitism and hate crimes unfortunately are rising across the nation, the Times Leader might want to follow the example of the Billings Gazette.
Times Leader Publisher Kerry Miscavage was quick to say yes, and believes the decision will reach far beyond local readers.
“As a media company that has such a vast print and digital audience, we choose to show our support and solidarity to our Jewish friends and neighbors not only across Northeastern PA, but to our readers and online visitors across the world, because it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “A special thank you to Elly Miller and Rabbi Mollo for taking the lead on this project and providing artwork and special message that we will display on Wednesday in the Times Leader.
“You can choose to show support as well by cutting out the page and displaying it in your home or place of business through the holidays,” Miscavage said.
Grateful for the support, Rabbi Mollo said, “We’ve seen the greatest rise in anti-Semitism since the Holocaust, and once the Hamas attack happened and Israel naturally retaliated, since then the propaganda machine has been going around the clock. We figured it was a good time to put out feelers and see who is willing to stand up and be counted.”
The story of Hanukkah, Rabbi Mollo said, goes back to 165 BCE, when “Jews were living in the Kingdom of Judah, but the Greeks moved in and said, ‘You’re going to live like us, dress like us, pray like us.’ They sacrificed a pig on the altar, defiling the temple in Jerusalem. If you didn’t follow suit and assimilate you were heavily persecuted — killed or exiled or jailed or the like.”
“But there arose a family, the Maccabees as they became known,” the rabbi continued. “This tiny band of Jews fought back and managed to overthrow the Greeks who were occupying Judah. When they rededicated the temple, the story goes, they found the last unbroken jar of oil left over from what the Greeks had destroyed. They rekindled the temple menorah and the flame lasted eight days, a week plus one day.”
“That’s why Hanukkah is also known as the Festival of Lights. Candles are lit during a time of year when it gets dark early,” Mollo said. “You also can think of it as driving out the darkness of anti-Semitism and replacing it with the light of goodness.”
If you want to be inspired, Elly Miller added, find and read the story of “The Christmas Menorahs,” or listen to it being read on youtube, and see how the residents of Billing wanted to take a stand not only against people who try to marginalize Jewish people, but those who would make indigenous people or African Americans or anyone else feel unwelcome, not because of anything they’ve done, but simply because of who they are.
“I’m passionate about diversity,” said Miller, who is a member of the steering committee for the Interfaith Resource Center for Peace and Justice in Wilkes-Barre. She also worked for Misericordia University for years and is “proud to be the first Jewish person to become a Mercy Associate,” which is a group of lay people who support the mission of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy.