Monday evening, on the fifth night of Hanukkah, Syracuse Jewish Voice for Peace held a Hanukkah vigil for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
About 100 people gathered in Clinton Square in Downtown Syracuse. Some held light-up letters spelling out Ceasefire. The group led by Syracuse Jewish Voice for Peace sang and said blessings for the candle lighting of the menorah.
Mara Sapon-Shevin, a member of Syracuse Jewish Voice for Peace, said Hanukkah is a holiday of light and a celebration of liberation but said the liberation needed at the moment is a "very critical liberation of Palestinians."
She said it's been a challenging time reconciling celebration with a period of deep grieving and mourning and a call for activism.
"I think there was a lot of feeling that we need to anchor ourselves in our Judaism and our traditions so that we can stand united against what is going on right now," Sapon-Shevin said. "And that not celebrating our holiday does not free the Palestinian people, but feeling centered and grounded in who we are and saying we are also Jews and we are Jews of a kind that is committed to social justice and committed to liberation."
Vigil attendees also recited the Mourners Kaddish — a prayer said to honor and remember people who have died.
"It's not traditional to do it for a huge group of people in this way," Sapon-Shevin said. "But we feel that the moment calls for us not to just remember our Uncle Abraham or something like that, but also all these thousands of people who have been murdered to say that their lives matter, that all lives matter, and that we are not just mourning a certain group of people, we're mourning everyone who has been murdered."
More than 18,000 Palestinians have died. Israel Defense Forces estimates more than 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack.
