Greetings. Welcome to the Daily Article Podcast. Today is Tuesday, December the 12th,

2023. I'm Chris Elkins, narrating today's daily article written by Denison Forum co-founder

and CEO, Dr. Jim Denison. President Biden hosted the annual White House Hanukkah party last night, invitees included

Holocaust survivors, and leaders from across Jewish religious denominations.

However, I am thinking today of a different ceremony held recently in dark places.

Some 800 minoras from Israeli children who were evacuated from the area around Gaza

were delivered to Israeli soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip.

As they lit these candles on the front lines, families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas

held their own Hanukkah observance in Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, in another moving act of solidarity,

German Chancellor Olaf Schultz lit the first candle on a huge manora in front of Berlin's

iconic Brandenburg Gate. Quote, I wish that the candle of Hanukkah would shine far beyond

this square and much longer than just for the eight days of Hanukkah,

Schultz said, while wearing a black velvet skull cap.

As Jews around the world grieved the atrocities of Hamas's October 7th invasion,

global solidarity with them as a people and as a nation is vitally significant.

However, there's a problem with conflating these two,

one we urgently need to understand in our conflicted day. Hanukkah originated in the second

century BC when Greco-Syrian rulers took over the Jewish temple and outlawed Judaism. Judah

the Maccabee led his fellow Jews to defeat one of the mightiest

armies on earth, drive them from the land, and reclaim the temple. However, when they sought to light

its manora, the seven-branched candelabrum, they could find only a single cruce of olive oil

...