Uncategorized
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.
—
The post The ‘Hanukkah House’ in Brooklyn is a family tradition and a neighborhood treasure appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
US Envoy Calls for Syria Truce to Be Upheld
US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack speaks during a press conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, in Damascus, Syria, Sept. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
A US envoy called for a truce between the Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces to be upheld, urging steps to build trust after Damascus captured swathes of the northeast in a push to reassert central authority.
Tensions between President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spilled into conflict this month as the SDF resisted government demands for its fighters and enclaves to be integrated into the state.
Under a ceasefire announced on Tuesday, the government gave the SDF four days to come up with a plan for its remaining enclaves to merge, and said government troops would not enter two remaining SDF-held cities if an agreement could be reached.
US envoy Tom Barrack said he met SDF commander Mazloum Abdi and leading Syrian Kurdish politician Ilham Ahmed on Thursday, and reaffirmed US support for an integration process set out in a Jan. 18 agreement.
“All parties agreed that the essential first step is the full upholding of the current ceasefire, as we collectively identify and implement confidence-building measures on all sides to foster trust and lasting stability,” he wrote on X.
The SDF, dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, and the government have accused each other of violating the ceasefire since Tuesday.
The SDF was once Washington’s closest ally in Syria but its position has been weakened as President Donald Trump has deepened ties with Sharaa. Barrack said on Tuesday the original purpose of the SDF had largely expired.
The SDF has now fallen back to Kurdish-majority areas.
ABDI MEETS IRAQI KURDISH LEADER
Abdi also met Nechirvan Barzani, president of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, on Thursday. Iraqi Kurdish politician Wafa Mohammed of Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said the meeting had been convened at the request of the Iraqi Kurdish leadership to discuss the SDF’s deal with Sharaa.
“There is strong US and international pressure on the Syrian Democratic Forces to end the disputes and implement the agreement, but that does not necessarily mean the US pressure will lead to a positive outcome. The problem is that the SDF does not trust the promises made by (Sharaa),” Wafa Mohammed told Reuters.
A second Iraqi Kurdish source close to the meeting said talks would also focus on a proposal for both sides to withdraw forces by around 10 km (6 miles) from the outskirts of Hasakah city, which is ethnically mixed and still in SDF hands.
The territories seized by the Syrian government from SDF control in recent days have included Syria‘s biggest oil fields, agricultural land, and jails holding Islamic State prisoners.
The SDF, which once held a quarter or more of Syria, has sought to preserve a high degree of autonomy for areas under its control, expressing concern that the Islamist-led government in Damascus aims to dominate the country, despite Sharaa’s promises to protect the rights of all Syrians.
A Syrian foreign ministry official said the government had preferred a political solution from the outset, and continued to, adding the rights of Kurds were guaranteed and they would not be marginalized as they had been under the ousted President Bashar al-Assad.
All “options were on the table,” the official told Reuters, speaking on the condition of anonymity, urging the YPG to “heed the voice of reason and come to the negotiating table.”
Uncategorized
Iran Exposed the Myth of Independent Journalistic Access
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 17, 2026. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
In October 2025, an opinion piece published in Iran International cited a telling remark by British broadcaster Jon Snow about his reporting from Tehran. When asked how his network, Channel 4, managed to secure access to Iranian officials, he said simply, “They whistle, and we go.”
That seemingly innocuous line was jumped on by journalists and critics because it revealed something about the way Western media covers authoritarian states like Iran. It was a rare moment of honesty but also representative of a deeper issue in Western journalism and a reminder that when dealing with tyrants, access is not the same thing as truth.
Access as Control: How Authoritarian Power Shapes Reporting
Snow’s comment should make anyone who cares about reporting from conflict zones or closed societies sit up and take note. The problem is not just that some correspondents end up parroting the messaging of the regimes they cover. The bigger problem is that the structure of modern foreign reporting rewards access above all else. If you have a visa, if you have a fixer approved by the intelligence services, if the state can decide where you go and who you interview, then you are in. If you challenge the narrative you are shown, you risk losing that access. The idea is simple: stay onside with power and you stay in the country; challenge power and you are out. This is a kind of press freedom in name only.
This dynamic is not unique to Iran, though the Iranian case makes the point with shocking clarity. To report from Iran, Western journalists must operate under state supervision. Their fixers are often regime-approved minders who decide which families they can meet, which streets they can visit, and what stories they can tell. The price of defiance is expulsion. Most choose to stay, and so they comply. The result is journalism that reports through the regime’s lens. In this case, the coverage mirrors Tehran’s narrative while ignoring its contradictions or its crimes.
The Iran International article highlighted how this kind of reporting perpetuates the illusion that “moderates” or “reformists” within the clerical regime are always on the brink of pursuing a more friendly policy toward the West, if only Washington and its partners would be more conciliatory.
But they are the only ones able to meet with foreign press, for a reason.
It must be acknowledged how easy it is, due to simple language barriers, for a regime like Iran to tell the West one thing, through these hyper-managed interviews, and to tell their allies or their own people something entirely different. In Iran, a younger, connected, defiant secular generation is fighting for their lives against a religious dictatorship.
Stories about women walking unveiled in defiance of the compulsory hijab law are rarely told with the depth and persistence they deserve, even though they represent one of the most sustained grassroots challenges to the Islamic Republic.
When Gatekeepers Become Storytellers
This tension between access and truth is not a quirk of reporting on Iran. It applies across many of the most important conflict zones of our time.
Look at how journalists cover the Palestinian territories. To report from the West Bank or Gaza, you need permission from the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, or the relevant security forces. If you want to talk to armed groups such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad, you must do so through intermediaries, and translators, and with the blessing of those groups.
The consequence is that journalists become dependent on these authorities to open doors for them. That dependency shapes the story. The authorities are the gatekeepers and the journalists end up telling the story they want told rather than the story that needs to be heard.
The same dynamic is evident in southern Lebanon.
In 2006, Nic Robertson of CNN spoke about his experience covering the conflict in Lebanon and how Hezbollah “had control of the situation.” That level of control creates an environment where reporters must negotiate and constantly accommodate the group’s conditions for reporting, if they want to stay in the country and file their stories. That negotiation inevitably affects the substance of the reporting. Some stories that might make those groups uncomfortable never get told. The result is a version of events curated by those terrorists themselves.
When a regime-backed organization can quietly move money, people, and logistics through cartel routes, the southern border stops being a political debate and becomes a national security vulnerability.
The Iranian regime’s threat to the U.S. doesn’t just rely on missiles. It… pic.twitter.com/kHU8OwX76Q
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 16, 2026
The Cost of Choosing Access Over Truth
And that brings us to the central problem. Journalists who operate under these conditions face a stark choice: they can stay close to power and preserve access, or they can push harder for truth and risk being shut out. Many choose to stay. That choice is understandable on a personal level. Journalists want to be where the action is. They want to file video and cables from the front lines. They want their editors to see them as intrepid and essential. But when access is the primary measure of success, it distorts what journalism is supposed to do. Journalism is supposed to challenge power, not accommodate it. It is supposed to expose abuses and amplify voices that might otherwise go unheard. But when access is controlled by those in power, journalism can become an unintentional arm of propaganda.
This dynamic matters beyond public opinion, but also politically, as leaders in Western capitals still rely on the press to gauge what is happening inside these societies. When the media misreads a country, so do the governments that read the media. Western policy on Iran for decades has been shaped by reporting that overemphasized factionalism and the potential for internal reform, even as the reality on the ground showed a population oppressed by the clerical establishment. That disconnect between media portrayal and lived reality has consequences for diplomacy and strategy.
Some journalists have tried to break free from this dynamic. But journalists who take that approach often find it difficult to return. They may be denied visas or locked out of future assignments. That is part of the price of choosing truth over access.
This issue does not mean that journalists should never go to places like Iran, Gaza, the West Bank, or southern Lebanon. On the contrary, those places deserve reporting. But it does mean rethinking how that reporting is done and how it is viewed and understood. Journalists must be willing to acknowledge the limitations of access, to report on what they are not shown, and to seek out voices beyond those sanctioned by power. We need journalism that recognizes the structural pressures that shape reporting and ultimately pushes back against them.
If and when journalists do eventually get deeper access to places like Gaza, they will face the same issues. Access will be contingent. Permission will be dependent on staying within certain lines. Journalists will need to think clearly about the ethical and professional implications of those conditions. Should they accept them in order to be able to say that they were there? Or should they insist on the freedom to report what they see and hear without being steered by those who have an interest in shaping the narrative? That is a question every correspondent must answer for themselves.
Ultimately, the lesson of Jon Snow’s offhand comment about reporting in Iran should not be boiled down to a joke or a sound bite. It should be a warning. Journalism that prioritizes access over truth fails its audience. It confuses permission for credibility. It allows power to define the terms of reporting instead of letting reality speak for itself. If we want journalism that truly informs and challenges the powerful, then we need to demand more of the reporters in the field and more of the editors who send them there. We need journalism that listens to the streets and not just to those pulling the strings.
Founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement, Ben M. Freeman is the author of Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People (2021), Reclaiming our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride (2022), and The Jews: An Indigenous People (2025). Educating, inspiring and empowering, his work focuses on Jewish identity and historical and contemporary Jew-hatred. A Holocaust scholar for over 15 years, Ben came to prominence during the Corbyn Labour Jew-hate crisis in the UK and quickly became one of his generation’s leading Jewish thinkers and voices against Jew-hate.
This article was originally published by HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
Uncategorized
Trump Launches Board of Peace, Says International Body Will Work ‘In Conjunction With’ UN
President Donald Trump takes part in a charter announcement for his Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts, alongside the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
US President Donald Trump on Thursday launched his Board of Peace, initially designed to cement Gaza’s rocky ceasefire but which he foresees taking a wider role worrying to other global powers, although he said it would work with the United Nations.
“Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do. And we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” Trump said, adding that the UN had great potential that had not been fully utilized.
Trump, who will chair the board, invited dozens of other world leaders to join, saying he wants it to address challenges beyond the stuttering Gaza ceasefire, stirring misgivings that it could undermine the UN’s role as the main platform for global diplomacy and conflict resolution.
While regional Middle East powers including Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, as well as major emerging nations such as Indonesia, have joined the board, global powers and traditional Western US allies have been more cautious.
Trump says permanent members must help fund with a payment of $1 billion each, and Reuters could not immediately spot any representatives from governments of top global powers or from Israel or the Palestinian Authority at the signing ceremony.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the board‘s focus would be on making sure the plan for peace in Gaza was fulfilled but that it could also “serve as an example of what’s possible in other parts of the world.”
GLOBAL ROLE
Apart from the US, no other permanent member of the UN Security Council – the five nations with the most say over international law and diplomacy since the end of World War II – has yet committed to join.
Russia said late on Wednesday it was studying the proposal after Trump said it would join. President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was willing to pay $1 billion from frozen US assets in the US “to support the Palestinian people,” state media said.
France declined to join. Britain said on Thursday it was not joining at present. China has not yet said whether it will do so.
The board‘s creation was endorsed by a United Nations Security Council resolution as part of Trump‘s Gaza peace plan, and UN spokesperson Rolando Gomez said on Thursday that UN engagement with the board would only be in that context.
Few of the countries that have signed up for the board are democracies, although Israel, Argentina, and Hungary, whose leaders are close allies of Trump and supporters of his approach to politics and diplomacy, have said they will join.
“There’s tremendous potential with the United Nations, and I think the combination of the Board of Peace with the kind of people we have here … could be something very, very unique for the world,” said Trump, who has long disparaged the UN and other institutions of multilateral cooperation.
Board members also include Rubio, the US Gaza negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
BRITTLE GAZA CEASEFIRE
Kushner, who is Trump‘s son-in-law, said the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal would address funding for reconstruction in the territory, which lies mostly in ruins, as well as disarmament by Gaza’s dominant Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, one of the most intractable unresolved issues.
“If Hamas doesn’t demilitarize, that would be what holds this plan back,” Kushner said.
“The next 100 days we’re going to continue to just be heads down and focused on making sure this is implemented. We continue to be focused on humanitarian aid, humanitarian shelter, but then creating the conditions to move forward.”
In a sign of progress on unresolved elements of the first phase of the truce, the Palestinian technocratic committee leader Ali Shaath said the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s main gateway, would reopen next week.
The ceasefire in Gaza, agreed in October, has sputtered for months with Israel and Hamas trading blame for repeated bursts of violence.
Both sides accuse each other of further violations, with Israel saying Hamas has procrastinated on returning a final body of a dead hostage and Hamas saying Israel has continued to restrict aid into Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an invitation to join the board, the Israeli leader’s office said. Palestinian factions have endorsed Trump‘s plan and given backing to a transitional Palestinian committee meant to administer the Gaza Strip with oversight by the board.
Even as the first phase of the truce falters, its next stage must address much tougher long-term issues that have bedeviled earlier negotiations, including Hamas disarmament, security control in Gaza, and eventual Israeli withdrawal.