Polish far-right party Confederation has made a significant breakthrough, entering the European Parliament for the first time after securing 12% of the vote. The party is known for its antisemitic and anti-Israel stance, setting it apart from many other right-wing parties in Europe.

This electoral success has positioned Confederation as the third largest party in Poland, trailing only the ruling party and the main opposition party Law and Justice, which is also recognized for its right-wing views. Last week, Grzegorz Braun, a prominent leader of Confederation, released an election video laced with antisemitic rhetoric, drawing condemnation from Israel's Ambassador to Poland Yacov Livne.

Video: Braun douses Hanukkah menorah in Polish parliament

Braun has previously made inflammatory statements, claiming that "the Jews have been waging war against the Polish nation for hundreds of years and tried to turn Poland into a Jewish state." In 2019, the party's chairman declared, "We don't want Jews here, we don't want LGBT, we don't want taxes, and we don't want the European Union."

Braun, now elected to the European Parliament, gained notoriety last December for extinguishing a Hanukkah menorah in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher, labeling Judaism as a "cult of the Talmud and Satan." Leaders of Confederation frequently allege that their political opponents serve the interests of Jews and Israel.

Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, representatives of Confederation have intensified their anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians and calling for Livne's expulsion.

The party's rise is seen as a reflection of the persistent antisemitism prevalent in certain segments of Polish society. Confederation's stance appears to resonate with these societal undercurrents, fueling their unprecedented electoral achievement.

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The possibility that the menorah that was used in the Second Temple in Jerusalem is hidden deep in the cellars of the Vatican has excited researchers, rabbis, and adventurers for many generations. It is, after all, the menorah that was used by the Temple priests for the daily candle-lighting ceremony and in which the Hanukkah miracle took place (although most likely it was one similar to it), that gave birth to a tradition that continues to this day. 

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Let's jump to the latest development in this 2,000-year-old story. Recently, the Chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu said that his son, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, was contacted by an Italian parliamentarian, whose name was not mentioned, with the most unusual suggestion: to jumpstart the process of the return of the Temple vessels, including the menorah, looted by the Romans from Jerusalem after the destruction of the Second Temple, which – he said – were indeed in the Vatican. 

This surely would have made headlines had not many attempts been made in the past to locate the vessels and substantiate the claims about their whereabouts. 

For instance, in 2002, in a meeting between then-Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican Oded Ben-HUr and Pope John Paul II, the two agreed to document all Jewish art objects kept in the Vatican. Hebrew University researchers, who were in charge of the project, examined the possibility of the menorah being kept there as well but found no evidence on the matter. 

Research on the carved menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome, however, is more established and is no less fascinating. 

The prevailing assumption among researchers is that the famous stone relief, which depicts the menorah and other vessels carried by the Roman soldiers on their triumphal procession from Jerusalem to Rome in 71 CE, was created based on the real gold seven-lamped candelabra. Other items looted from the Temple include the Gold Trumpets, the fire pans for removing the ashes from the altar, and the Table of Showbread.

The candlestick, however, that was looted from Jerusalem, might not have been the original menorah used by the Temple priests in their service. It could have been one of the replacement menorahs that were stored in the Temple in case of malfunction or disruption. 

This hypothesis is based on the fact that the appearance of the Arch of Titus menorah does not match the description of the menorah in Jewish sources. For instance, the base of the arch menorah is different in that it has three levels that depict various sea and dragon-like features, which was not the case with the original, as any images of animals or creatures were associated with the sin of idolatry. 

The first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog hypothesized that the original base of the menorah could have broken off and been lost on the way to Rome, and therefore, local craftsmen had to reconstruct it their way, which is why the arch menorah was carved differently.  

Scholars have also pointed out that the language of another source, a Genesis Rabbah midrash that discusses the destruction of the Second Temple, suggests that the menorah that was taken by the Romans was indeed a replacement one, as do the descriptions of the spoils by historian Flavius Josephus. 

Many have tried to trace the movements of the menorah that was taken by the Roman soldiers. First, it was deposited in the Roman Temple of Peace, built 20 years earlier in honor of Pax, the Roman goddess of peace. Did the menorah survive the fire that destroyed the temple in 192 CE? And if it did, was it moved? After all, many a conqueror invaded Rome and looted it over the centuries.

the centuries.

One such researcher is Arnon Segal, who in his book "Habayit" attempts to retrieve the movements of the candelabra, starting 130 years after the fire in the Roman Temple of Peace. 

"Some say that the menorah was moved to Constantinople (Istanbul), during the time of Constantine the Great in 324 CE, when he moved and renamed the capital of the empire," Segal said. "Others hypothesize that the menorah resided in the Temple of Peace in Rome, until the Vandal conquest of 455 CE. So these barbarian invaders could have stolen the menorah and melted it."

Another possibility is that "the menorah remained intact and that Justinian the Great, who lived in the sixth century, even returned it to Jerusalem and placed it in a mighty church that he built, and whose remains are under the Batei Mahseh Square in the Old City. 

Others claim that "in 410 CE the menorah made its way to Carcassonne in the south of France, after the Visigoths, barbarian tribes from the Scandinavian region, looted Rome and took its treasures to their capital, Carcassonne.

"According to this theory, after about a hundred years, the Swabians looted Carcassonne and took the menorah to their new capital, Carthage, in North Africa." From there, according to this hypothesis, "the Byzantine commander Belisarius, who conquered Carthage in 550 CE, took the menorah back to Constantinople.

"Others claim that the movements of the menorah did not stop there and that during the First Crusade, in 1099, the Crusaders returned it to its former place on the Temple Mount, where it was kept by the Knights Templar. With the conquest of the city by Saladin, the retreating Knights Templar took the menorah with them to Acre, and from there to Cyprus. In the end," according to this hypothesis, "the soldiers of Philip IV, king of France, returned the candelabra, in the 13th century, back to the pope's cellars in Rome."

The Vatican has denied time and again that it has any looted Temple vessels in its possessions. As mentioned above, even if a menorah is kept there, it is not the one originally used in the Temple, nor is it the one that was used by the Hasmoneas in 164 BCE (234 before the destruction of the Second Temple) in which the Hanukkah miracle occurred. According to the First Book of Maccabees, the Temple was also looted by the Greeks, including the menorah, which forced the Hasmoneans to light oil in seven iron skewers. 

What happened then to the original menorah after the destruction of the Second Temple and where is it today? Both Josephus and the Talmud suggest that the Temple vessels, including the candelabra, were buried during the siege in hidden caves deep underground (as had been the vessels of the First Temple hundreds of years earlier). 

Roman soldiers, who tried to find the menorah, only located the replicas and not the candelabra that was used by the priests for the daily candle-lighting service. 

Over the course of history, several more individuals attempted to locate the menorah. For instance, in 1911, Montagu Brownlow Parker, a British aristocrat and army officer, bribed most of the Waqf guards on the Temple Mount and spent several nights digging, but without success. When he was discovered, he fled the country by the skin of his teeth. 

In 1981, then-Rabbi of the Western Wall Yehuda Getz too attempted to locate the treasures, especially the Ark of the Covenant. Based on Kabbalistic writings, he uncovered a large cave in the Western Wall Tunnels, where the Holy of Holies of the Temple is said to have been located. The search ended in a violent clash between Jews and Muslims. Then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered for the opening that was broken through by Getz to be sealed, and the relative quiet in the area returned. 

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Throughout the generations, depictions of the Temple vessels, the menorah in particular, were used to decorate synagogues, mosaic floors, tombs, and Jewish homes, including to this day.

The same is true of the Jewish community of Gaza. Up until 40 years ago, before Israel withdrew from Gaza, one of the pillars of the local Great Mosque bore inscriptions in Hebrew and depicted a menorah, a shofar, and an etrog fruit – evidence of the Jewish existence in Gaza during the days of the Talmud.

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After eight days and eating who knows how many sufganiyot (jelly-filled donuts) this Hanukkah, the brightest holiday on the Hebrew calendar came to an end on Sunday night. The candles have all burned out, the menorahs stored away, and now we look with hope to the next holiday in line – Tu B'Shevat – which is of course followed by Purim.

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This Hanukkah, it was hard not to notice the work of some 5,100 Chabad activists in 106 countries across the globe. They placed large menorahs at iconic sites and photographs of their festive candle lighting ceremonies appeared on all the news wires. They were also busy passing out sufganiyot and delivering menorahs to anyone without.

In total, despite the coronavirus pandemic, Chabad emissaries took part in over 16,000 Hanukkah candle-lighting events, reaching some 8 million Jews across the world, according to Chabad.

"More than 40 years ago, the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson) noted the usefulness of Hanukkah to… foster pride and Jewish identity no matter the place," said Rabbi Yosef Aharonov, the head of Chabad's emissary enterprise in Israel.

"At first it wasn't completely a given. Some were even concerned about antisemitic reactions it would cause, and preferred more modest Hanukkah celebrations. But the Rebbe was unperturbed, and encouraged his emissaries and students to do all they could to light up the world and maximize visibility.

"It's a little hard to imagine, but less than 50 years ago, menorahs only appeared inside people's homes. The emissaries invest a tremendous amount of effort to raise the immense financial resources required, and today, virtually every traffic junction in Israel light up the night, sports venues across the globe hold candle lighting ceremonies, and there is no popular tourist destination where a festive candle-lighting ceremony isn't held, together with the local leadership, Jewish or otherwise. The light won," said Aharonov.

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An American journalist who was recently freed after spending nearly six months in jail in military-ruled Myanmar helped light the Hanukkah menorah during a holiday celebration in downtown Detroit.

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Danny Fenster, 37, joined elected and community leaders Sunday night for the "Menorah in the D" event marking the start of Hanukkah.

Fenster, who is from the Detroit suburb of Huntington Woods, was handed over Nov. 15 by Myanmar to former US diplomat Bill Richardson, who helped negotiate his release. He returned to the US the following day.

The managing editor of online magazine Frontier Myanmar, Fenster is one of more than 100 journalists, media officials and publishers who have been detained in the Southeast Asian country since its military ousted the elected government in February.

He was arrested on May 24 at Yangon International Airport and convicted of spreading false or inflammatory information, contacting illegal organizations and violating visa regulations. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison with hard labor.

"It wasn't a theme I thought about before the timing of my release and the timing of this event, but I think there's that obvious connection with bringing light to darkness in journalism," Fenster, who is Jewish, told the Detroit Free Press. "The things that I was arrested for, being part of the news organization that's trying to shed light on a very dark regime, seems obviously resonant to me."

"I can't imagine a better community to come home to," Fenster said during a reception prior to Sunday's menorah lighting. "And it's just made an already great, joyful situation even more joyful. Just had a lot of love and appreciation back home here in Detroit and metro Detroit, in the Jewish community and the wider community. It's just been incredible."

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan attended the ceremony saying none of the previous events have been as special as this year with the safe return of Fenster.

"This truly is a Happy Hanukkah in Detroit. God bless you," Duggan said before the lighting.

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The North MoPac Expressway runs up Austin's west side, a busy, eight-lane artery that speaks to the city's expanding suburbs and the extravagant consumption of space that is uniquely Texan. It's not a place that seems conducive to antisemitic demonstrations – or demonstrations of any kind, for that matter. But late last month, the MoPac came to national attention when a banner appeared on an overpass reading "Vax the Jews." The sign bore the name of a neo-Nazi group. Several men were seen beside it giving the Nazi salute to passing cars.

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The banner was one in a string of antisemitic incidents that rocked Austin that week, culminating in an arson fire outside Temple Beth Shalom on Nov. 1 that caused more than $25,000 worth of damage. On the day before the fire, the banner appeared over the MoPac again.

Austin faith leaders and politicians forcefully condemned the incidents; a "Rally for Kindness" was held at the capitol; and on Monday, Nov. 29, another sort of response will be issued: Levi Levertov, associate rabbi at Chabad of Austin, will light a large menorah on the overpass where the banner appeared.

"Our approach is to spread positivity to everyone we meet, Jewish and non-Jewish," Levertov told JNS. "What better symbol could there be than to light a menorah on an overpass that brought fear and hate to Austin. The overpass was spreading hate; the menorah is spreading light."

The event will be one of several of public menorah-lightings in the Austin area, including events at the capitol with the governor and at City Hall with the mayor, said Levertov.

Public lightings began in 1973, when a group of yeshivah students erected a small, wooden handmade menorah on Fifth Avenue in New York City. It was just a stunt to attract attention; the students were there to distribute free tin menorahs. A year later, in 1974, in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, a small white wooden menorah was put into place by Chabad Rabbi Abraham Shemtov and a handful of yeshiva students.

It was done at the initiative of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who encouraged his followers to take the mitzvah of publicizing the Hanukkah miracle –pirsume nisa in Hebrew – quite literally. The Rebbe embraced his students' innovation, promoting public menorahs as a triumph of light over darkness and an expression of Jewish pride.

The campaign caught on, and within a few years, large, V-shaped menorahs appeared outside state houses, from the Billy Graham menorah in San Francisco to the one outside the Kremlin. US President Jimmy Carter kindled the first national menorah outside the White House in 1978 – a tradition that has taken place ever since.

Initially, the idea encountered fierce pushback from Jewish groups, who saw the menorahs as undercutting their hard-fought battle to remove Christian symbols from the public square. Civil liberties groups joined the fight, and in 1989, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging a menorah outside a Pittsburgh municipal building. In County of Allegheny v. ACLU, the Court ruled 6-3 that public menorahs did not violate the separation of church and state because they had become a symbol of the secular holiday season. A subsequent Supreme Court challenge, in Cincinnati in 2003, cemented the menorah's constitutional status.

Today, public menorahs are so ubiquitous that they transcend denominations and even faiths. "Public lightings shine light in both the physical and the spiritual realms, and remind us that we are together, standing strong," Neil Blumofe, senior rabbi at Conservative Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, told JNS. "It is an important statement that the lights of Hanukkah represent a respectful and navigable way forward – a proper and holy way to utilize fire – especially after the arson attack in Austin."

A grassroots campaign this year in Buda, Texas, persuaded officials to allow a menorah on town property for the first time. When they refused to fund it, as they did the public Christmas tree, Christian groups chipped in to make it possible.

'Hanukkah with the Greeks'

Public menorahs seem particularly relevant at a time when 39% of American Jews say they have changed their behavior out of fear of antisemitism, according to a recent study by the American Jewish Committee titled "The State of Antisemitism in America 2021." It's a phenomenon that's only intensified by the hothouse environment of a college campus, said Rabbi Yudi Steiner, director of the Rohr Chabad Center at George Washington University.

After a Torah scroll was found desecrated in a GW fraternity last month, Steiner launched a campaign to put up mezuzahs for Jewish students on campus. "There was tremendous buy-in," he said. "At the same time, there are students who feel uncomfortable putting up the mezuzah because they feel they're going to be targeted."

Hanukkah's message of religious freedom and spiritual light is the antidote to that mentality, said Steiner – "The theme could not be more perfect" – and he's seizing the moment to create an unexpected alliance. On the last night of the holiday, Chabad is staging a public menorah-lighting co-sponsored by every fraternity and sorority at GW, an event they have playfully dubbed "Hanukkah with the Greeks."

"These aren't just individuals making a decision to support Jewish life," said Steiner. "These are student organizations coming out and saying we want to do the right thing."

Samson Kampler, a junior at GW, said last month's incident at the fraternity wasn't anything new. "Antisemitism doesn't surprise us anymore. As a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, I find that really unfortunate."

Public menorah-lightings on campus give him a sense of Jewish pride, he said, but, perhaps more importantly, they're an opportunity to teach: "It's giving insight to kids of other religions, to show that no matter what occurs across campus, we're proud. We just want to celebrate our holiday."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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A proposal by the mayor of the South Florida community of Miami Shores to place a menorah in the village town hall during the holiday season has led to a major pushback from the village's attorney and some members of the council.

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At the April 6 meeting, Miami Shores Mayor Crystal Wagar raised the idea of putting up a menorah during the winter holiday season, which seems long overdue to some who live in the heavily Jewish area. However, village attorney Richard Sarafan, who, according to The Miami Herald, is himself Jewish, argued that putting a menorah would open Miami Shores to a lawsuit. He went on to say that a Christmas tree is viewed as a holiday and not a religious symbol, so it is allowed.

Just hours after news broke that their council "rejected" a plan to allow a menorah to be displayed, some council members have been suggesting that they did not have enough information and needed more time to study the matter.

The request to revisit the issue comes after the council was criticized on Wednesday evening for their decision – the same night that coincided with the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day. It also comes just days before a local council election.

The meeting concerning the menorah also sparked outrage by outside legal groups and other South Florida Jewish officials.

In a letter to the village, the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists called on the council to "retable the proposal at the next meeting to ensure a proper, informed discussion can take place."

Robert Garson, the group's president wrote: "Particularly last night, at the beginning of Yom Hashoah, it was simply appalling to watch the nature and standard of the discussion on the issue of whether a menorah, the internationally recognized symbol of people of Jewish heritage, could be displayed by Miami Shores Village, during the winter season.

"Even more troubling was witnessing the mayor's palpable disbelief and frustration at the inarticulate and unreasoned purported analysis by attorney Richard Safaran," Garson wrote, adding that in this instance, the menorah would be allowed because the mayor's "message of inclusion clearly is a secular objective, which can include a symbol with an undeniable historical meaning."

Southeast Florida has one of the largest Jewish populations in the United States with an estimated 650,000 Jewish residents, following New York City and Los Angeles.

Mayor Gabriel Groisman of nearby Bal Harbour also expressed concern.

In a post on Twitter, Groisman said, "last night, Miami Shores, Fla rejected Mayor Wagar's request to put a menorah at Village Hall for the season! Menorahs are displayed in public squares across our nation and country – from Miami City Hall to the governor's mansion to the White House. This is simply unacceptable."

In response, Wagar tweeted back, "Celebrating the diversity of Miami Shores ad making all our residents feel welcome is fundamental to me. Know this … the work is not done, and this is not the first marathon I've run."

Meanwhile, according to reports, at least one council member says things are not as clear-cut as others are making them out to be.

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"To be clear, the council did not vote on the issue at the April 6 meeting," council member Jonathan Meltz posted on a Facebook community page. "A motion was made to vote, but no council member seconded the motion. It was unusual for such an important issue to appear on the agenda without any memorandum or written documents. [The] usual protocol for new agenda items was not followed."

Meltz, who is Jewish and says he supports having a menorah on village grounds during the winter holidays, suggested that the council revisit the issue on April 20.

"This is an important issue and should be treated as such," he wrote on Facebook. "There should be no rush to vote without the same consideration and information provided for every other issue presented to council."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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