On Hanukkah, we celebrate the heroism of the Maccabees, the few who overcome the many. For example, according to the First Book of Maccabees, at the battle of Emmaus, 3,000 Jews defeated 5,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry.
At the battle of Beth Tzur, 10,000 Jews defeated 60,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry.
Since October 7, we have been awed by the heroism of tens of thousands of Israelis who have performed incredible acts of bravery, such as those of the following exemplary individuals:
• Lt. Yannai Kamina, who with his fellow officers saved over 100 soldiers and civilians at Zikim.
• Aner Shapira, who defended 30 people inside a mobile shelter near Re’im by throwing seven grenades back outside.
• Sixty-five year old Rachel Edry, who fed the terrorists coffee and cookies and other foods at her home in Ofakim for 17 hours, until she and her husband were rescued by the police.
But there are other types of heroism which take place elsewhere, not on the battlefield.
Last Friday, the 19th of Kislev, was the 50th yahrzeit of my grandfather, Rabbi Mordechai Ya’akov Golinkin, whom we called Zeyde. Small in stature, he was great in his devotion to God, Judaism, and the Jewish people.
I would like to briefly recount three of his acts of quiet heroism:
In 1913, Zeyde was the chief rabbi of Zhitomir in Ukraine, which is 90 miles (145 km.) west of Kyiv. He had made a point of becoming friendly with the governor of Volhynia. And then the Beilis blood libel trial began in Kyiv. The governor asked him: “Is it true that Jews use blood to bake matzot?”
Zeyde opened up a Bible in Russian and showed him the verses that forbid Jews from eating blood. Furthermore, even if they find a single blutstrop – drop of blood – in an egg, they must discard the egg! The governor believed him – and promised that there would be no blood libels and no pogroms in Zhitomir before, during, or after the Beilis trial. He kept his word.
In February 1938, Zeyde was the av bet din (head of the rabbinic court) of Danzig, the Free State between Germany and Poland. This was before Kristallnacht and the Holocaust. He wrote a letter in Hebrew to the av bet din of Melbourne (which I published in 2021), looking for a place where the Jews of Danzig could flee. Toward the end of his letter, he wrote:
“May his excellency not think that my words written here are in black ink, as they appear to the naked eye. The truth is.. he would see the blood of the souls of our fellow Jews hovering between life and death under the letters and in between the lines.”
Struggles during the Holocaust
After Kristallnacht in December 1938, the Jewish community of Danzig agreed with the Danzig Senate that they would all leave by May 1939. They sent their precious ahead Judaica to New York (and in 1980, there was an exhibit at the Jewish Museum of these artifacts). Most of the Jews left by the deadline. My grandparents were among the last to leave, arriving in the United States in May 1939.
Throughout the entire duration of World War II, there was only a single demonstration in Washington DC to protest the slaughter of European Jewry. It was a demonstration of 400 Orthodox rabbis in Washington, DC on October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur.
The rabbis met with vice president Henry Agard Wallace on the steps of the Capitol. Roosevelt, whom we now know was an antisemite, refused to meet them at the White House. My grandfather was one of those 400 rabbis.
We, too, are surrounded by quiet heroes. Below, are some recent examples of such people.
• A rabbinical student at Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, Liran, who has been doing miluim (reserve duty) for 14 months.
• Anat Alkabetz, an MA student at Schechter, whose daughter Sivan and her fiancé were murdered at Kfar Azza on October 7. Anat and her husband Shimon have turned their daughter’s house into a museum and have given tours to many thousands of people.
• Yahaloma Zakut, our MA graduate from Ofakim, has helped us set up a program to teach Spiritual Care in Ofakim.
So this Hanukkah, let us remember the military heroism of the Maccabees and of our incredible IDF soldiers and also the quiet heroism of Rabbi Mordechai Ya’akov Golinkin – and of Liran, Anat, Yahaloma, and the hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel and the Diaspora who have performed acts of heroism since October 7.
Happy Hanukkah!
The writer is the president of The Schechter Institutes, Inc. in Jerusalem.