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The ‘Hanukkah House’ in Brooklyn is a family tradition and a neighborhood treasure
(New York Jewish Week) — Hanukkah, the winter holiday that commemorates the triumph of Judah Maccabee and the miracle of long-lasting oil, has plenty of heroes to celebrate. But in one Brooklyn family’s home, the hero is the “Hanukkah Fairy” — or at least the mom behind it.
Starting some 25 years ago, Gail Nalven Fuchs and her husband, David Fuchs, stayed up late the night before Hanukkah began to completely decorate the interior of their Midwood house in tinsel, dreidels and blue and white decor. When their two kids awoke wide-eyed at the wonder, the Fuchs explained that the Hanukkah Fairy, who came to decorate and spread the light and joy of the holiday, had paid their house a visit.
Over the years, what began as a lark grown into a grand tradition — these days, eye-catching, illuminated Hanukkah decorations can be found on the home’s exterior and front lawn, too, including an oversized menorah, Jewish stars and inflatables, such as a giant teddy bear wearing a Hanukkah sweater and a spinning dreidel. The “Hanukkah House,” as it is locally known, is now a bonafide neighborhood treasure, attracting neighbors, visitors and children from around Brooklyn.
Fuchs and her family pose in matching sweatshirts outside their decorated house. L-R: Michael, Charlie and Alyson Kogan; Harrison and Katie Bryan; David and Gail Fuchs.
The tradition of Hanukkah decorating started in 1997 when the Fuchs’ kids, Alyson and Harrison, were 7 and 5. It was one of the family’s favorite holiday traditions to drive through the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, where family homes have been putting out over-the-top lights and Christmas decorations since the 1980s.
“Isn’t Hanukkah called the Festival of Lights?” her son, Harrison — the playwright for “A Hanukkah Carol, or GELT TRIP! The Musical,” a Jewish take on Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic — asked one year as they drove through Sheepshead Bay. Fuchs confirmed it was.
“Then why don’t I see any Hanukkah lights?” he asked. “Everything is Christmas themed.”
Fuchs tried to explain to her son that even though the lights are Christmas themed, they are for everyone to enjoy. “He said, ‘I would enjoy it so much more. If I saw something that I know about. I don’t know about Christmas,’” she recalled.
It was a moment of realization for Fuchs. “New Yorkers always say we live in a melting pot,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “It didn’t feel that way at Christmastime.”
In response to Harrison’s questions, she helped him pen a letter to the New York Post. “It’s very hard to be a 5-year-old Jewish boy at this time of year,” the letter, which was published in 1997, opens. “I get very sad when I am driving the car in Brooklyn and I look at all the lights and decorations hanging across the avenues.” Harrison then goes on to request more Hanukkah decorations in the years to come.
The next year, a few weeks before Hanukkah, someone from the New York Post called to let Fuchs and her family know that there would be a large public menorah on Avenue U — sure enough, there it was.
“We drove by and Harrison was so excited. He went home and drew the menorah with paint and we hung it on our wall and he would look at it every day.”
Harrison Bryan as a child in front of handmade Hanukkah art, alongside an excerpt of his letter he wrote to the New York Post in 1997. (Courtesy, design by Mollie Suss)
Seeing how happy her kids were when they saw their holiday represented, Fuchs decided to start decorating her home with dreidels, menorahs, candles, Hanukkah art and tinsel. Enter the Hanukkah Fairy, who Fuchs created to add a sense of magic and wonder to the holiday — and to surprise her young kids.
“Every year there were more and more Hanukkah decorations from the Hanukkah Fairy,” Fuchs said. “The kids used to write letters to her before the holiday saying ‘Hi Hanukkah Fairy, I hope you had a nice year, I cannot wait to see my home decorated this Hanukkah.’”
The exterior decorating began slowly: David Fuchs, who owns a handmade steel manufacturing and distribution business, built the giant menorah. Over the years, the “Hanukkah Elf,” as he’s known by his family, has since built Jewish stars and various signs for the house. They also try to add a Hanukkah-themed inflatable to their collection every year — this year’s newbie is a dinosaur wearing a Hanukkah sweater.
Harrison and Alyson are now 30 and 32, respectively, but the tradition has carried on. To keep the Hanukkah spirit strong, the decorations typically start going up about a week before the holiday starts, and stay up until a week after it ends, Fuchs said.
While Fuchs considers herself a Conservative Jew, many of her neighbors in Midwood are more traditionally Orthodox. Still, she’s noticed that many in the area are eager to take pics with the inflatables — some years, a school bus from a nearby yeshiva even stops in front of the house so kids can look.
“I love sitting back on my porch — nobody sees me and I love watching all the people go by,” she said. “It’s just a joy.”
The Fuchs family has always celebrated Hanukkah to the nines — four generations of the extended family gather at their home for a Hanukkah party, complete with a gift exchange — and decorating the house has become one of their favorite parts of the holiday. Fuchs’ adult children will help decorate the house, and Alyson Fuchs now also puts up decor in her apartment in Carroll Gardens, where her two daughters, who are 2-and-a-half years old and 7 months old, now carry on the wonder and delight at the Hanukkah Fairy.
“We have Hanukkah pride,” she said. “But it’s not so much ‘Hey, I’m Jewish. Here’s my house, too.’ It’s ‘Hey, I have a holiday that’s really a lot of fun. Look how pretty it is.’”
It’s a tradition that’s become so important to the family that the “Hanukkah Fairy” even features in Harrison Fuchs’ new musical. “I really did believe in The Hanukkah Fairy,” Harrison, who uses the stage name Harrison Bryan, told the New York Jewish Week. “To me, this magical entity was just as real as the Tooth Fairy, or Santa to other kids. It was amazing waking up on Hanukkah morning — my sister and I would marvel at all the decorations — blue and white everywhere, and to such an extent that it felt impossible for this to have been done without actual magic.”
“It was only when I got a little bit older that I realized, it was real magic — the magic of having incredibly imaginative parents who wanted their children to feel loved and proud of their cultural identity,” he added.
Bryan made “The Hanukkah Fairy” a character in his musical — the fairy is the “Spirit of Hanukkah Present” who guides the Scrooge-like protagonist Chava Kanipshin through her actions. “Even though it may have been a tradition my parents made up, it was always meant to spark joy in others too,” Bryan added. “And with the show, alongside the Hanukkah Fairy, we hope to do just that.”
Hanukkah starts this year on the evening of Sunday, Dec. 18, and Fuchs welcomes visitors to come by, enjoy the decorations and take pictures. Located in Brooklyn on East 14th Street between Avenues J and K, her house will be the one all lit up with Hanukkah gear. “You can’t miss it,” she said.
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The post The ‘Hanukkah House’ in Brooklyn is a family tradition and a neighborhood treasure appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New York shouldn’t divest from Israel Bonds — and voters should be wary of politicizing pensions
At the Passover Seder, we sing dayenu — “it would have been enough.” Each verse names a gift given by God to the Jewish people: the exodus, the parting of the sea, manna in the desert, the Torah. We sing the song to cultivate gratitude, and to remind ourselves that while just one of these miracles would have been sufficient, together, they are overwhelming. The point is to recognize that we have been blessed and that we carry an obligation — to remember, to protect and to stand with those who are still in danger.
Drew Warshaw, a candidate who is challenging Tom DiNapoli in the Democratic primary for New York state comptroller, recently published an op-ed in these pages calling on New York to divest its pension fund from Israel Bonds. He reinterpreted the Seder’s recitation of dayenu not as a prayer of gratitude but rather as a reminder of a personal reckoning — “enough is enough!” he wrote — suggesting it is time to withdraw the United States’ support from Israel.
This beautiful tradition deserves better than to be weaponized against a financial instrument, Israel bonds, that has served New York State pensioners — including school administrators, sanitation workers, court officers, and first responders — well for many years.
So, as a member of the Israel Bonds national board of directors, let me offer my own dayenu:
- If Israel bonds had simply never defaulted or had never been late on a single payment since 1951 — through wars, recessions, and regional upheaval — dayenu. It would have been enough.
- If Israel bonds had only delivered consistent, strong investment returns to the police officers and firefighters who rely on New York State’s pension fund — dayenu.
- If Israel bonds had only helped build a democratic nation from the ground up, the only stable democracy in a deeply unstable region — dayenu.
- If Israel bonds had done all of this while the state of Israel endured wars, fought terrorism and weathered the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023 — dayenu.
These facts present strong reasons to maintain or expand the investment. In contrast, the case for divestment is weak. That’s especially true given that Israel bonds represent far less than one percent of the nearly $300 billion held by the New York state common retirement fund. This is not a portfolio-defining position. It is a rounding error being treated as a moral crisis.
Warshaw is right that our tradition demands moral courage. But the story of the exodus is not only a story about the courage to leave; it is also a story about the courage required to build.
For Israel, sovereign bonds are part of that building. The proceeds from Israel bonds have been used to build every part of Israel’s economy. To treat an Israel bond as nothing more than a political statement is to collapse a complex financial instrument into a bumper sticker.
The New York State comptroller has one overriding obligation: to make investment decisions based on financial evidence guided by economics, not a personal political agenda.
State-level divestment from Israel would set a troubling precedent, telling voters that New York’s pension fund can be redirected not by financial best practice but by ideological pressure, its investment decisions subject to the political winds of any given election cycle. That is a slippery slope to travel.
The New Yorkers whose savings are at stake deserve better, and so does the tradition Warshaw has invoked. It teaches us that the hardest work is not, in fact, leaving. It is, instead, building something worth staying for.
The post New York shouldn’t divest from Israel Bonds — and voters should be wary of politicizing pensions appeared first on The Forward.
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Cole Allen’s manifesto cites the Bible — so why did Trump say he ‘hates Christians?’
“When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians,” President Trump said on Fox News, speaking about the alleged culprit behind an attack at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
But Cole Allen, the 31-year-old man tackled to the ground of the Capitol Hilton, where the dinner was held, was, according to reporting from independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, a devout Christian, active in the Christian fellowship at CalTech, his alma mater. And his manifesto, which started with an apology to “everyone whose trust I abused,” in fact thanked his church and cited the Bible, giving a theological justification for his efforts.
“Rebuttals to objections,” he wrote in his neatly laid out manifesto, starting off with the idea that “as a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.” This, he argued, doesn’t apply when someone else is oppressed and, in fact, “turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior.”
Later, he turned to the quote “yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” that comes from the gospels. (The line appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke.) This quote is usually interpreted to mean that Christians should obey the government of their time, or that earthly matters — like, in the biblical context, taxation — do not concern God. Trump, Allen wrote, is not a supreme emperor like Caesar but instead subject to the rule of law. “In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything,” he wrote.
While people might have theological quibbles with these arguments, they clearly come from a place of engagement with Christianity. So why did Trump frame Allen’s attack as specifically one against Christians?
Trump signed a national security directive in September last year, stating that “anti-Christianity” as well as “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality” are common threads driving domestic terrorism. The directive outlined a new strategy including investigating any person or organization who might fall under this new, sweeping set of domestic terrorism priorities in order to “intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” Much of the directive is focused on monitoring speech.
Directing attention toward a sense of persecution functions to unite an increasingly splintered MAGA base, some of whom are feuding over how their Christianity dictates their response to Israel and the war in Iran.
Some Christian politicians on the right, such as Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, claim their Christianity demands that they support Israel. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth regularly cites his religion in justifying U.S. wars, including the one in Iran.
But an increasing number of others, including talking heads like Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes, and former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene — once an outspoken Trump supporter — have said that their faith demands that they oppose the government’s wars and its support for Israel.
This is an issue for Trump, who was elected with the support of a strong network of conservative Christian leaders, think tanks and PACs. Many of Trump’s supporters were initially drawn to him for religious reasons and have long spoken of him in terms of God’s favor, comparing him to biblical figures including King Cyrus and King David or citing Trump’s survival of the assassination attempt during his campaign as a sign of God’s personal protection.
By invoking another attack against him as an attack against all Christians, Trump may be hoping to redirect his base from their squabbles over Israel, and Jews, and reunite them against a common enemy — namely, a conveniently nebulous association of figures who supposedly hate Christianity, or want to violently police their beliefs. Perhaps he’s hoping none of them will read Allen’s manifesto and come to the conclusion that he is, in fact, one of them.
The post Cole Allen’s manifesto cites the Bible — so why did Trump say he ‘hates Christians?’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Cruz Calls for US to Join Israel, Taiwan in Recognizing Somaliland
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on April 15, 2026. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has renewed his calls for the Trump administration to recognize Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state, arguing the self-declared African republic would be a significant strategic partner if Washington were to formalize relations.
“Somaliland is a geo-strategic US maritime security partner in Africa,” Cruz said last week during a hearing on US counterterrorism approaches in Africa. “It sits along the Gulf of Aden near one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors and its forces actively contribute to counterterrorism and anti-piracy missions.”
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement.
Unlike most states in its region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability.
“Somaliland stands with our allies, including Taiwan and Israel, and aligns with US interests in a region where China is aggressively expanding,” Cruz said. “Most recently, Israel’s decision to formally recognize Somaliland in December 2025 underscores its growing strategic relevance.”
In December, Israel recognized Somaliland’s independence, becoming the first UN-recognized country in the world to do so — Taiwan did in 2020 — while igniting a diplomatic firestorm in Somalia and dozens of Muslim nations which condemned the decision.
Israel announced the appointment of its first ambassador to Somaliland earlier this month. Less than two months earlier, the first official delegation from the self-declared African republic — 25 water sector workers — arrived in Israel for help on tackling their water crisis at home.
As for the US, Cruz noted that Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the Commander of US Africa Command, had met with partners in Somaliland last year “to assess the security environment and to review Berbera’s operational capacity.”
“This is the kind of partner we should be encouraging and one that will shape how we confront CT challenges in the Horn of Africa,” he added.
Anderson visited Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa and Berbera, the site of a rapidly developing trading port operated by Dubai’s DP World, one of the world’s top shipping and logistics companies which manages 10 percent of global container trade.
On Thursday, Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE), responding to an official state invitation. The UAE has nurtured a longstanding relationship with Somaliland, previously supporting training for the country’s military in 2018. The deal for constructing the Berbera port will allow the UAE to maintain a presence for 30 years.
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has “solidified a ‘Berbera Axis’ (Israel-UAE-Ethiopia) centered on port access and maritime monitoring,” according to an analysis by Marie de Vries, a researcher at the French think tank La Fondation Méditerranéenne D’études Stratégiques (Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies), or FMES. In contrast, she added, a “Mogadishu Axis” has emerged due to a partnership of Somalia with Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia
Cruz’s comments came after US Rep. John Rose (R-TN) told The Algemeiner that he supported the US recognizing Somaliland.
“I think it’s also an important element that this is a relatively well-functioning democracy, and we think the United States should encourage that,” said Rose, who also touted the strategic benefits for the US. He introduced legislation to push the US government to study boosting economic ties with Somaliland.
Cruz addressed the arguments of those who oppose recognition of Somaliland in last week’s hearing.
“Critics argue that recognizing Somaliland could introduce new CT [counterterrorism] risks or undermine our posture in Mogadishu. I would argue the opposite,” Cruz said. “Working with a capable, willing partner like Somaliland strengthens our posture, particularly when Somalia itself continues to struggle with instability and persistent terrorist threats.”
Nick Checker, senior official in the US State Department’s Bureau of Africa Affairs who testified at the hearing, said that while Somaliland has been a “very good partner” on counterterrorism, US President Donald Trump’s current position is not to support formal recognition.
“I certainly agree with you that Somaliland has been a very good partner CT and otherwise with the United States. We’ve had a positive relationship with both them and other member states,” Checker said. “But you know the policy of the administration for now is that we do continue to recognize, as you know, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the federal government of Somalia. But within that framework, we still do obviously look for opportunities to deepen our cooperation with Somaliland.”
Cruz expressed optimism that Trump would change his position.
“Well, I think the implications would be strengthening an ally, and I think clarity is powerfully effective in foreign policy and national security,” Cruz responded. “And I think that is an approach that President Trump has embodied. So, I have a high level of optimism that by the end of this term, President Trump will recognize Somaliland.”
Cruz previously called on Trump to recognize Somaliland in an August 2025 letter.
Somaliland “has proposed hosting a US military presence near the Red Sea along the Gulf of Aden and is open to critical minerals agreements that would support our supply chain resilience,” Cruz wrote in his letter. “The US-Somaliland partnership is robust, and it is deepening.”
Somaliland says it has significant mineral resources, and officials have expressed a willingness to offer the US a strategic military base at the entrance to the Red Sea and critical minerals as part of a deal that would include formal recognition.
However, China has strongly opposed any such moves.
“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using economic and diplomatic coercion to punish Somaliland for its support for Taiwan, as well as to undermine that support,” Cruz wrote in last year’s letter. “The government of Somalia has played an unfortunate role in these efforts: In April 2025, the CCP arranged for Somalia to bar Taiwanese passport holders from transiting into Somaliland, and Chinese support to Somalia is benefiting anti-Somaliland groups working to erode its sovereignty.”
China’s embassy in Somalia released a statement in response to Cruz’s letter declaring that Beijing “firmly opposes this misconduct. Senator Cruz’s remarks constitute serious interference in the internal affairs of Somalia and reflect the hegemonic and bullying attitude of certain US politicians towards the Somali people.”
Cruz referenced China’s response during last week’s hearing.
“Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Communist Party immediately condemned my letter, which only shows how important Somaliland is to US national security,” he said.
De Vries described in her FMES report that “recognition of Somaliland risks normalizing Taiwan’s presence in a region where China has heavily invested in ports, telecommunications, and security partnerships. China’s reaction is driven less by the legal status of Somaliland than by a broader strategic calculus focused on preventing Taiwanese visibility and safeguarding Djibouti’s role as a primary regional hub.”
China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017.