Menorah lightings in Ohio Heartland displace Bethlehem darkness (SLIDESHOW)

NORTH CENTRAL OHIO — Municipal officials in Bethlehem, Israel recently announced there will be no holiday display at Manger Square this year as an “act of solidarity” to Gaza. This cancellation comes in response to Israel’s retaliation against Hamas after the October 7th massacre. During the unwarranted attack, Hamas terrorists murdered fourteen hundred Israelis and kidnapped over two hundred-forty. While universities across the nation spew their hatred towards the Jewish State, communities in the Midwest are displaying their solidarity for Israel in their public spaces.

Amie Mutti is a faith-based advocate for Israel and part of an effort to display menorahs on municipal property during the Hannukah season. This year menorahs are being displayed on civic property in four area communities.

“There is currently a campaign going on for non-Jews to show their support for the Jewish people and to stand against anti-Semitism,” says Mutti. “By placing a hannukiah (menorah) in their windows they are showing their solidarity for Israel. I am proud that our surrounding communities have taken this one step further by placing hannukiahs in their public spaces for Hannukah.”

Mutti believes that no matter how dark things get, in the end the light will always prevail. With civic approval, menorahs have been placed for the first time in Fredericktown near municipal hall, and in Shelby, near the Gazebo and Gamble’s Millstone. These two area displays join two other Hannukuh holiday displays at municipal parks in Ontario and Lexington.

Area support for the Jewish State has been ongoing. In 2019, the Richland County Board of Commissioners began investing in Israel bonds. Earlier this year, nine area mayors and three boards of county commissioners gave formal proclamations recognizing the seventy-fifth anniversary of the rebirth of Israel. Just last month, lead clergymen representing one hundred fifty-five congregations gave a joint statement at the Sar Shalom Center condemning the October 7th Black Sabbath attack by Hamas terrorists. The clergymen also supported Israel’s absolute right to exist and to defend itself.

Saturday evening one of the clergy cosigners of the joint statement, Rabbi William Hallbrook, held a Hannukuh banquet at his synagogue. During the event, he discussed the rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world since the October 7th massacre. The same hatred can now be seen in the United States.

Rabbi Hallbrook showed his congregation a photograph taken in 1931 by a rabbi’s wife from Kiel, Germany. The chilling picture depicts in the foreground, a hannukiah in a window of her home. Behind it is a flag of a swastika prominently displayed across the street outside the adjacent Nazi headquarters. At that time, most Jews after the rise of the Nazis, pulled their curtains shut during Hannukuh so their hannukiah (menorah) could not be seen from the street.

“The point can be made that there are similarities between the modern U.S. and to Germany before World War Two,” the Rabbi comments. “In a time when Germany’s Jews were being subjected to increasing hostility, the hannukiah this rabbi’s wife displayed became an act of defiance to commemorate Hannukah. She was determined to show she and her husband were not afraid. When the photograph was discovered in 1974, Rosi Posner had written on the back of the picture, ‘just as the Nazi flag says Judaism will die, so the light (of the hannukiah) says it will live forever.’”

Rabbi Hallbrook adds, “We are to be the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket; but on a lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house.”

The Bottom Line:

The Bible says in Revelations Chapter Two, “Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

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