It would seem like a coincidence that I again found myself in the Arab Middle East at Chanukah time. But as a Jew, I know there are no coincidences. Everything is miretz Hashem,
the will of G-d.
The last time I was here was in 1990/1991, during the Persian Gulf War. I was in the Marines then. Though not yet observant at the time, I was a proud Jew who knew it was Chanukah. So I made a crude menorah out of aluminum foil and lit Chanukah candles in the middle of the Persian Gulf.
I am no longer in the Marines. I am now an Air Force Reserve chaplain assistant. My job is to provide religious support to the members of the Air Force and to our entire armed forces. I recently was called up to active duty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. So I’m back in the “sandbox” — only now, as a chaplain assistant and an observant Jew, it is my job to seek out my fellow Jews here and provide them with an opportunity for religious observance.
As soon as I arrived at my undisclosable location, I began scouting for Yiddin in the area. I found a total of five other Jews on our base.
Chanukah had also arrived. Thanks to donations from friends back home, care packages sent by caring Jews nationwide and The Aleph Institute, an organization that provides publications and Jewish holiday supplies to our armed forces, I amassed an ample supply of prayer books, menorahs, candles, dreidels, kosher cookies, candy, chocolate coins and other goodies to hand out.
The dreidels were most popular with the non-Jews. Everybody wanted one. While passing them out, I had the opportunity to teach them, and subsequently the whole base, about Chanukah and the meanings behind it (as well as how to gamble with a dreidel, of course).
In the course of attempting to procure kosher wine for Shabbat (the local Arab customs officers had confiscated my supply upon arrival, because alcohol is contraband in Muslim countries), I learned that a nearby Army camp had more Jewish soldiers there, and that they were throwing a Shabbat/Chanukah party on the last night of the festival, which this year fell on a Friday.
I was able to recruit two other Jews to accompany me to this party. One of them, Matthew, a young airman from Pittsburgh, told me he hadn?t thought he would get an opportunity to celebrate Chanukah out here. He even agreed to stay at the Army camp with me over Shabbat.
Believe it or not, even in a war zone it’s possible to keep the Sabbath. It was no simple matter to arrange the logistics and transportation for this trip, but I?ve found that when you try to do G-d’s will, He matches your effort.
With His Divine speed and protection we made it through all the security checkpoints and into the camp. We arrived shortly before sunset, just in time to light the menorah and the Shabbat candles. I could now take off my pistol and welcome the Sabbath Queen.
The Shabbat evening service and subsequent party were held at the camp’s chapel, which was once a warehouse. The resident army chaplain assistants hadn’t been able to arrange lodging for us on such short notice. They offered to put the two of us up in an unused storage room in the chapel building. The room contained two cots and was the size of a prison cell. However, this also turned out to be a blessing from G-d, because we had more privacy than we would have at the transient lodging tents — and we even had indoor plumbing.
Other Jewish soldiers started trickling in from this and other camps, and we were able to make a minyan. We started the service by kindling the lights. It was quite a sight to see. The Shabbat candles and a dozen fully lit menorahs all standing on one table and burning bright — in the middle of the Arab Middle East, no less!
The Jews who gathered together that night were a mixed bunch — Army and Air Force, officers and enlisted, young and old, and everybody from a different background. Most of our “congregation” had a Reform or Conservative upbringing. One soldier was the son of an Orthodox rabbi. Another, a black woman, is in the process of converting to Judaism.
The Chanukah party was a blast. We had lots of kosher snacks, sodas and Kedem grape juice. The colonel made potato latkes for us, and I cut up and passed around a kosher salami that was sent to me by a generous family, the Strashuns of Hillside, New Jersey. Even out here I’m keeping kosher, and this was the first real meat I’d eaten in nearly a month.
Presents were handed out and then we started the Vegas-style dreidel-gambling for Chanukah gelt. The big winner, Mordechai, an Army specialist and former paratrooper, was taking his earnings, a shopping bag full of chocolate coins, back to his unit to share with his buddies.
“This is the best time I’ve had since I’ve been away from my wife” he said to me later that night.
Before I left my home in Seattle, I had talked about this war with one of my rabbis, Yecheskel Kornfeld. He told me that this is a war against evil and the forces of darkness. The way to combat the forces of darkness is by bringing light into the world.
“How do you bring light into the world in the middle of a war zone?” I asked.
“By continuing to study Torah and doing mitzvot [G-d’s commandments] as best you can, even in a war zone,” he answered. That is how you bring light into the world.”
The theme of Chanukah is all about bringing light into the world, and about a miraculous military victory of a small band of devout Jews. By keeping Shabbat and observing the mitzvah of lighting the Chanukah menorah, we American Jewish soldiers are not only doing our part militarily, but also spiritually, in this war against the forces of evil and darkness.
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