By Night 7, the Hanukkah menorah is almost complete. Light shines from every branch but one. And this, it turns out, is the most challenging moment in the series: We’re as good as done, we tell ourselves. We can relax, even skip a night. After all, we showed up all the other evenings and look at all the candles we already lit.
But this evening guards the fragile portal to complete success. If we persevere. If we show up again. If we do our bit. Tonight is the night that leads to the harvest of light, of justice, of peace. How? By now, we have recounted the Hanukkah stories (the Maccabee’s courageous resistance and the story of the miraculous light). Now we show up, and we are the latest embodiment of Maccabee’s tenacity. We are that light that won’t go out. Others try to silence us. Their fear and their rage pushes them to condemn anyone who insists that only shared justice, only risking real conversation, only loving our children and theirs, is the only path to real peace.
Tonight, we bask in an incomplete light because we know that to stop now dooms both peoples to endless violence and death. We light, again, because we won’t stop loving Israel into security and peace, which means lifting the neighboring Palestinians into a peace worth the risk.
– Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies
No light shines brighter than that of the younger generation committed to peace and the humanity of Israelis and Palestinians alike. At J Street U – the collegiate organizing branch of J Street – the education and advocacy of our students can and does inspire action and illuminate the path toward peace and justice.
Too often, college campuses were a place of darkness. But J Street U student leaders from schools across the country – including hot-bed campuses where violence and protest flared – courageously stood up for the dignity, freedom and self-determination of Israelis and Palestinians.
Students, defying the instinct to move to the extremes, brought the loudest voices in the room together, sometimes holding events and dialogues with peers from polar opposite sides of the political spectrum. And when those loud voices did cut through the news and dominate our screens, J Street U leaders were a voice of reason. They penned op-eds. They spoke to their administrators. They hosted events uplifting the voices of peace activists.
Today, our student movement is bigger and stronger than ever before – a testament to the need and desire for understanding among younger generations. J Street U is paving the way to make nuanced education on Israel-Palestine in the American Jewish community more accessible – and its teachings more broadly embraced. With them, our future is in good hands.