When my Romanian Jewish immigrant grandparents arrived in the United States, they brought with them very few items and were told to pack only the necessities, and three items which of such personal meaning, that no matter how great America might be, nothing could replace the emotional value of just three special objects. My Grandmother told her story and recalled her diary, a scarf knitted by her grandmother, and a poem her father had written for a birthday. Along with her two other sisters, mother, and father, my grandmother arrived in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, luckily received and housed by her mother's relatives. When they finally unpacked, much to my grandmother's surprise, she and her sisters discovered that her parents, fearing that there would be too much luggage, brought with them, some personal papers, a Romanian marriage license, and a bronze Menorah. The Menorah, had been in my Great grandmothers family for a few decades, and THAT was one item, which no matter how many miracles regarding the celebration of Hanukah could never be replaced, should never be replaced, and would always be a strong reminder of the miracle of finding freedom, even at the cost of leaving a place where memories grew, but increasingly and increasingly were stymied by ignorant and bigoted people, who felt that all the problems in the village, in the country and in the world were because of the Jewish people. Even, back in the day, the Romanians, thought the Jewish People were outlanders preying on Romania, and should go back to their own nation of Juda Land!
Many items, as we grow older, and move packing and unpacking, changing locations, establishing new homes, get lost in the harried shuffle of our lives, but somehow, of all the remnants which remained of the first exodus from Romania, it was the Menorah which survived. When, my Grandmother became too tired for the Hanukah preparation, and her generation of siblings and cousins grew old, my mother, became the recipient of the MENORAH. My Grandmother proudly, but with a small tear falling as if in slow motion, wanting to linger in her eye, handed the MENORAH to my mother. But as the MENORAH was still in the clutches of my Grandmother's hand, and before the official handing down from one generation to another was finalized, my Grandmother cleared her throat, and in her VERY OFFICIAL I AM the MATRIARCH of this family voice, said to my family. “Do you see all of the colors from the candles melted, they look almost as if they are a quilt upon the MENORAH. All of these splotches of wax, tired and roughly strewn, are memories of decades of our family celebrating a holiday of miracles. NEVER, and I mean NEVER remove that wax…because in doing so you have removed a part of YOUR past.
I have that MENORAH. And when I look at it, I smile, I sigh, I remember, I miss, I yearn, I cry, and I promise my Grandmother to always recall. We all are living in a time of terrible trauma, caused by the empty and unempathetic evil, a sociopath named Trump. We seem to be living in a time, also when HISTORY, so full of facts and relevance has been ignored or discarded…all, which if we paid more attention to its lessons, might help us understand the DANGER that lies ahead of us in a days’ time a week’s passing a month’s arrival, but soon! We should be, as a nation, a combination of a patchwork of the past, but even as this season of miracles arrives, I fear the future. Tonight, for those who celebrate, it is the first night of Hanukah, and the first candle will be lit, and we will wish for a miracle.
