Lighting Chanukah Candles in a Shadowed World

It is the third night of Chanukah. I am sitting in the quiet of my home in the Greater Kansas City area, my home, at least for now, watching three small flames lean against the winter draft. By tradition, this is a week where the light is supposed to grow. But tonight, the match feels heavy in my hand.

This Jew is tired.

I don’t want to be compelled to come to my keyboard every time blood is shed or hatred is dressed up as justice, and I am worried that this is what my writing has become: a voice for the tired, a voice for those being silenced. I want to write about Jewish values, community, and the ways we celebrate, the ways we gather. I want to talk about the warmth of our traditions, not the coldness of our headlines.

But right now, the air feels thin.

We lead with Bondi. On the first night of Chanukah, at a “Chanukah by the Sea” celebration in Sydney, the unthinkable happened. Gunmen opened fire on families, on children getting their faces painted, on Holocaust survivors like 87-year-old Alex Kleytman, who died shielding his wife. Fifteen lives were snuffed out in an act of Islamic State-linked terrorism.

This is what “Globalize the Intifada” actually looks like. It isn’t a metaphor for liberation; it is a literal map of violence.

The ripple effects are everywhere.

In France, the iconic New Year’s Eve concert on the Champs-Élysées has been cancelled. The “City of Light” is hitting the mute button because it no longer believes it can safely host a public celebration. In the States, the shadows are just as long. Just days ago, a mass shooting occurred in a classroom at Brown University belonging to a Jewish professor of Judaic studies, Rachel Friedberg. Hours later, Nuno Loureiro, a brilliant physicist and director at MIT, was shot dead in his own home. I am still reeling from the Yom Kippur attack in my former home of Manchester. And this is before we mention attempted car rammings and the like that occurred in Israel this week.

Whether these acts are proven to be connected or isolated, the atmospheric pressure they create is the same. It is the sound of a world deciding that Jewish life is a target.

And yet, the sharpest pain often comes from our own backyard. Right now, in Kansas City, there is a darkness that requires illumination.

Recent reporting by local journalist Kevin Deutsch, published under the headline ‘Dropping Bombs on Babies’, has brought to light a painful reality. It concerns our city’s inaugural Poet Laureate, Melissa Ferrer Civil. She was appointed by Mayor Quinton Lucas and awarded a $5,000 honorarium. This is taxpayer money intended to “elevate local artistic life.”

Instead, as Deutsch’s meticulous research reveals, that platform has been used to demonize the Jewish community. Civil has referred to the October 7 massacre (let’s not forget that this was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust) as an “act of resistance.” She has utilized imagery that revives medieval blood libels, accusing the Jewish state of “beheading” and “dropping bombs on babies,” while stripping Israeli victims of their humanity.

Melissa isn’t just an anonymous poet spreading rhetoric from a distance; she was once a welcome part of our family fabric. She is someone who shared Shabbat meals at my table, who sat around our firepit, and who engaged in deep, difficult dialogues while breaking bread. We didn’t always agree, but there was a seat for her.

Yet, in the wake of October 7, I became persona non grata. My socials were blocked, and my invitations for the kind of dialogue we once cherished were dismissed. It is a staggering irony that an artist appointed to “bridge rifts” and “foster community” has chosen to build a wall where a table used to be.

I am not a war correspondent. I am a neighbor. And as a neighbor, I have to ask: Is this what we paid for?

We often speak of “supporting the Jewish community” in comfortable, photogenic ways. We show up for public menorah lightings. We nod solemnly at interfaith breakfasts. But true support is not found in the easy gestures; it is found in the uncomfortable moments when we must speak up against those we might otherwise align with on issues of art or social justice. Leadership is not a boilerplate statement saying “these views don’t represent us.” Leadership is the courage to stop giving a seal of approval to those who frame our existence as “criminal aggression.”

The light of Jewish continuity is a strange and miraculous thing. For thousands of years, it has flickered. Sometimes it shows up strong and blinding; other times, it is almost suffocated as it struggles for a lack of oxygen, the world trying to suck the air out of the room. But that light is the Jewish continuity that keeps us all showing up today. Even when they want us to stop.

I am tired, yes. But the light is still there, just as it has always been able to flicker for thousands of years. We gather because our joy is an affront to those who want us to disappear. We gather because the “oxygen” of the Jewish people is found in the way we hold onto each other.

Tomorrow, I will strike the match for the fourth night, because the light belongs here. And it always will.

• Bondi Beach Attack: [Sydney Morning Herald / Associated Press, Dec 14, 2025] - Detailed report on the “Chanukah by the Sea” shooting.

• Brown University Shooting: [Providence Journal, Dec 13, 2025] - Report on the targeted shooting in Prof. Friedberg’s classroom.

• MIT Tragedy: [MIT News / Boston Globe, Dec 16, 2025] - Obituary and investigation details for Prof. Nuno Loureiro.

• Paris Cancellations: [France 24 / Sortiraparis, Dec 2, 2025.] - Champs-Elysées: Paris cancels New Year’s Eve concert on December 31 for safety reasons.

• Kansas City Poet Laureate Investigation: ‘Dropping Bombs on Babies’ by Kevin Deutsch, After October 7 Substack. Kansas City’s Mayor Stands by Anti-Israel Poet Laureate, Declines to Address Bigotry in Her Work by Kevin Deutsch, After October 7 Substack.