In 1991, I lit Hanukkah candles with Mikhail Gorbachev, then president of the Soviet Union. After the ceremony he asked, through his interpreter, what we had just doneâ??what was the meaning of the ritual? I asked the interpreter to tell him that more than 2,000 years ago, under a repressive government, the Seleucid Greeks, Jews fought for the right to practice their faith in freedom. â??My people won,â? I said, â??and ever since we have performed this ceremony in memory of that event.â?
I then noted that for 70 years after the Russian Revolution, Jews also lived under a repressive government in the Soviet Union and were not allowed to practice their faith. â??You gave them back their freedom,â? I said, â??so you too are part of that story.â?
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