A miracle menorah that has come to symbolize Jewish perseverance has made its way to the front lines of the war between Israel and Hamas.
The historic piece is famous for an iconic 1931 photo taken by Rachel Posner, a Jewish mom of three who lived in Kiel, Germany. The defiant snapshot shows the menorah on a windowsill, all eight candles lit, as a Nazi party flag flies ominously outside.
On Sunday, Dec. 10, the fourth day of Hanukkah, Posner’s great-grandson Raziel Gilo, a 35-year-old Israel Defense Forces reservist, brought the menorah to the Gaza border to inspire his unit.
“We face a brutal and terrifying enemy that wants to destroy Israel,” Gilo told The Post. “This enemy doesn’t separate a religious Jew from a non-religious Jew. They want to kill every Jew because he or she is a Jew — exactly like the Nazis tried to do.”
His great-grandmother Rachel, along with her rabbi husband and three young children, lived across from Nazi headquarters in Kiel and were forced to flee Germany by 1933. They arrived in Palestine during the Hanukkah of 1934 — escaping persecution with the simple brass menorah in tow, as well as Rachel’s photo.
One the back of the photo, she wrote what her granddaughter Nava Gilo now calls “prophetic” remarks: “Death to Judah — so the flag says/ Judah will live forever — so the light answers.”
Since 1974, when Posner sent the picture to a Kiel museum, it’s become an iconic symbol. Dani Dayan, the former Consul General of Israel to New York and current chairman of Yad Vashem — Israel’s Holocaust memorial — previously told The Post that he posted the photo of the menorah on his social media channels every year for Hanukkah.
Last year, Nava, who lives in the Central Israel town of Rehovot, and her brother Yehuda Mansbach brought the menorah to Germany for the first time in nearly 90 years, meeting with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin to light it on the second day of Hanukkah.
It’s usually displayed at Yad Vashem except for Hanukkah, when the Posner family brings it to one of their homes and Mansbach takes it to Israeli schools to share “our important history and message” with kids, said Nava. “It’s very important that it’s not stuck in my generation.”
“It’s amazing the difference between the last Hanukkah [and this year],” said Nava. “This Hanukkah there is a new dimension to the story. The war reminds us that we still have a long journey but we take it with head high held and with great belief. As my grandmother wrote: ‘Juda will live forever.’”
This year, Nava’s son, Raziel, a rabbi for his unit, asked to take the menorah with him to a base near the Gaza border where, on Sunday, he drew the treasured family keepsake from his backpack and shared the story of its survival.
“In order to continue our humane life we have to destroy evil. We cannot accept or swallow it — we have to destroy evil,” Raziel, who lives in Lod, told his troop as he lit the candles. “In these days we see it in such a clear way that, if we don’t win, the darkness will swallow us. But this will not happen. We are here due to previous generations fighting against evil and we will win …
“This is a many-years war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness and [we] believe that a day will come when the light will definitely win. This is the meaning of the small light of the Hanukkah candle … My grand-grandmother saw two things: One that the candle will win, and the second thing is the eternity of Israel.”