I set the chanukiyah on my windowsill, about to light the candles and paused. Was I inviting violence into my home?

It was Sunday evening—my first Chanukah as a conversion candidate—and I had just returned from a party at my shul. Earlier that day, as Jews around the world kindled the first light of Chanukah, gunmen had opened fire on a community celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney—many were murdered, including Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, 87-year-old Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman and a 10-year-old girl named Matilda.

By Monday, we learned the FBI had foiled a plot to bomb Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve by what federal authorities described as members of a radical pro-Palestinian, anti-government extremist group—the same organization that had recently stormed one of Los Angeles’s largest synagogues. Oct. 7 was 26 months ago, yet the massacres continue.

I live in a mid-sized, overwhelmingly Christian city in Texas. The threat here is not what it is in Sydney or Los Angeles. And yet as I stood at my window, lighter in hand, the distance collapsed. What had seemed like a simple act of faith now suddenly felt like a statement. I thought of Bondi Beach, of Oct. 7, of all that followed. I wondered whether those small flames might draw the attention of someone who would do my family harm.

The thought of letting fear win filled me with shame. In seeking comfort, I turned, as I have been taught, to the Tanach. In the book of Ruth, the archetypal convert declares to Naomi: “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.” Ruth spoke those words not in safety but in uncertainty. Standing at my window, I understood her differently. Shame left and resolve took its place. I lit the candles. I left the chanukiyah in the window. I am not alone.

While lighting the candles is a mitzvah, placing them where they can be seen is what the Talmud calls pirsumei nisa: “publicizing the miracle.” The chanukiyah is placed at the doorway or window, specifically to be seen by passersby. Chanukah is, by design, a public declaration and, in times like these, it can become a declaration of resolve.

But the Talmud also acknowledged the cost of visibility. In times of danger, one may place the chanukiyah on the table, hidden from hostile eyes. For centuries, Jews often lit their candles indoors, away from those who might take offense or worse.

In 1931, Rachel Posner placed her family’s chanukiyah on a windowsill in Kiel, Germany. Across the street hung a Nazi flag. She photographed the scene and wrote on the back: “ ‘Death to Judah,’ says the flag. ‘Judah will live forever,’ the light answers.” That menorah now resides at Yad Vashem, returned each year to Posner’s descendants to light anew.

The light answers. It answered in ghettos where Jews fashioned menorahs from scraps. It answered in Soviet gulags where prisoners risked everything for observance. It answers today, when Jewish communities worldwide face the highest levels of antisemitic vitriol and violence in decades.

To every Jew reading this, I plead: Do not dim your flame. Place your chanukiyah in the window. Let it be seen. The entire purpose of pirsumei nisa is to proclaim, publicly and unapologetically, that we are still here. Darkness has tried to extinguish us before. It has failed. It will fail again.

And to our neighbors—Christians, Muslims, those of other faiths or no faith at all—I ask you to consider lighting candles of your own. In 1993, after a brick was thrown through a Jewish child’s window in Billings, Montana, thousands of non-Jewish households placed menorahs in their own windows. The message was unmistakable: An attack on our Jewish neighbors is an attack on us all.

We need that message again. The Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—taught that Chanukah carries “a universal message of freedom of the human spirit, freedom from tyranny and oppression, and of the ultimate victory of good over evil.” When Project Menorah encouraged non-Jews to display menorahs after Oct. 7, 2023, rabbis responded with overwhelming support. What matters is the intent. Not appropriation, but alliance. Not mimicry, but moral witness.

As the Rebbe wrote, “a little light dispels a lot of darkness.” The Chanukah menorah is not a mere decoration. It is a statement of resolve—that light persists, that the few can overcome the many, that the sacred endures and that evil is a mere shadow against the light.

Rabbi Eli Schlanger died bringing that light to his community on a beach in Sydney. In Los Angeles, plotters driven by the same hatred were stopped before their bombs could detonate. The light endures while darkness fails.

Tonight, and every night of Chanukah, I will add another flame. The darkness grows no darker, but our light grows stronger. Place your candles where they can be seen. Let the light answer.

Credit: JNS