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‘All about light overcoming darkness’: How US Jews are celebrating Hanukkah with Israel at war

(JTA) — When tickets for Los Angeles’ Infinite Light Festival went on sale in October, just a week after Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel, sales were brisk. In fact, tickets sold out to the annual Hanukkah celebration held by the local Jewish federation’s young adult division, NuRoots, faster than in any other year.

“I truly believe that that’s because people are just craving to be in community, to celebrate, to be given permission to have a sense of joy, and to show up and have fun,” Chelsea Synder, vice president of NuRoots Community, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Joy has felt hard to come by in Jewish communities since Oct. 7, as grief, fear and anxiety have been the prevailing emotions in the wake of the attack, Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza and a global explosion of antisemitism. Yet the arrival of Hanukkah — the first holiday since Simchat Torah, the date of the assault — has required Jews and their communities to figure out how to balance sadness and celebration.

For many, the symbolism of Hanukkah offers a handy way to thread the needle.

“It’s a difficult time, but Hanukkah is all about light overcoming darkness,” said Rabbi Aryeh Kaltmann, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Columbus, Ohio.

Hanukkah is a major event for Chabad, which is known for its public displays of Jewish practice surrounding holidays. The movement’s rabbis organized what it said were more than 15,000 public menorah lightings last year, including what its teen network said was the first-ever Hanukkah candle lighting at an NFL “Sunday Night Football” game.

Kaltmann has put together an expansive program called “Eight Nights of Fun” that includes someone dressed as Judah Maccabee skydiving from an airplane to light a menorah, a cannon shooting edible dreidels, a menorah lighting at a Columbus Blue Jackets NHL game and more. The over-the-top agenda was by design.

“The more we could do to bring out celebration and unity between Jewish kids and the community, the better,” Kaltmann said.

“Although it’s hard to celebrate Hanukkah when we know that there are brothers and sisters who are in prison for no crime of their own, just because they happen to be Jewish… we can ignite hope and love and a sense of camaraderie,” he added, referring to the 138 people still held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. “When we do a good deed, that joy and that celebration can make a difference for our brothers and sisters in Israel.”

While Kaltmann’s plans are a turbocharged version of what he does every year, the war has given rise to a new set of just-for-wartime Hanukkah plans as well. A fundraising campaign called “Light of Strength” aims to raise $3.5 million to send Hanukkah gift cards to 75,000 Israeli children who have been displaced from their homes.

“When we think of Hanukkah, we think of the lights of Hanukkah, right? Bringing light into the darkness,” said Tali Reiner Brodetzki, an Israeli who lives in Pennsylvania and is leading the campaign. “A lot of the Hanukkah songs are about this: getting rid of the darkness, bringing light and joy. And this is what it’s all about — bringing light and joy to these kids’ lives.”

Young Jews celebrate Shabbat during the 2022 Infinite Light Hanukkah festival in Los Angeles. (Courtesy of NuRoots)

In New York, UJA-Federation is hosting a handful of Hanukkah events that also draw a direct connection to the war. Its Dec. 7 “Evening of Music and Light” is a benefit concert for Israel, while the event page for its Dec. 12 candle lighting reads: “With our focus on the war in Israel and the rise in antisemitism, most of us are seeking the comfort of our community and a reprieve from the alarming headlines.”

Those alarming headlines have included a spike in reported antisemitic incidents that have some Jews wary of showcasing their Jewish identity in public — a key requirement of the holiday. Adam Kulbersh, an actor and father in Los Angeles, launched the “Project Menorah” initiative to encourage non-Jews to display menorahs in their windows out of solidarity.

“We’re in a time of awful antisemitism, historic levels,” Kulbersh told JTA. “I think the idea of inviting our non-Jewish allies to add their light to ours in a time of darkness has really moved people.”

Some Jews who oppose the war are using the holiday to call attention to their cause. A group called Rabbis for Ceasefire is holding a Hanukkah candle-lighting in New York City on the first night of the holiday, for example.

But even as war and loss have reshaped some Hanukkah events, many others are proceeding largely along the same lines as they have in the past — with raucous fun layered upon a history that has included struggle and overcoming great odds.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, the local Chabad is hosting “Unite with Light: A Jewish Solidarity Chanukah Concert” with American-Israeli singer Nissim Black. The Bronx Jewish Center is also holding a Hanukkah concert with the Jewish a capella group The Maccabeats. The Chicago Loop Synagogue will put on a performance of “Hershel & the Hanukkah Goblins,” a story about a man who outsmarts a procession of goblins and saves the holiday for one shtetl.

And in Los Angeles, where NuRoots has planned a full slate of events to engage young Jews during the holiday — including L.A.’s sizable Israeli population — Snyder said the focus is on bringing the community together during “our darkest moments,” as the event page puts it.

“Hanukkah is the symbol of hope,” she said. “I think all of us can really lean into what hope means for us, regardless of how you affiliate yourself politically. I think the world is hard. And I think that hope and light and this idea of celebrating and coming back to joy, and donuts and latkes, it makes us connected on a level that’s deeper than ourselves.”


The post ‘All about light overcoming darkness’: How US Jews are celebrating Hanukkah with Israel at war appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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