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Ruth King

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Officials Reveal New Details About the Bizarre D.C. Area House Explosion: Paula Bolyard

By on December 6th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/paula-bolyard/2023/12/05/official-reveal-more-information-about-dc-area-house-explosion-n4924501

At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Arlington County, Va., officials shared additional information about the bizarre home explosion that occurred in the Ballston neighborhood last night.

According to Arlington County Police Chief Andy Penn, the individual who was in the home at the time of the explosion is deceased. Fire officials found human remains in the house and believe that they belong to the suspect, James Yoo, 56, who owns the home. However, DNA tests have not yet confirmed the identity of the remains. “All factors point to that is this individual, but that has to be confirmed, and it’s going to take time to confirm that as well.”

Penn said the ACPD was called to the home at 844 N. Burlington Street at approximately 4:45 p.m. for reports of possible shots fired. “On-scene investigation revealed that a male suspect discharged a flare-type gun from the residence more than 30 times,” he said. “Officers attempted to engage with the suspect without success. A search warrant was ultimately obtained to allow our officers to secure any weapons to ensure there would be no ongoing threat to the community.”

It’s not clear why police needed a warrant to enter the home of someone firing a flare gun from the residence. Nevertheless, “members of the emergency response team initially attempted to execute the warrant through various forms of communications with the suspect. However, this was not successful.”

They deployed “non-flammable, less lethal chemical munitions to multiple areas within the residence where the suspect was believed to be hiding” in the hope that he would surrender.

Police say their only past interactions with Yoo were to address “calls for service for loud noise” over the past couple of years. 

“We are aware of concerning social media posts allegedly made by the suspect and these will be reviewed as part of the ongoing criminal investigation,” Penn added. 

Prior to the blast, residents of the area were evacuated for their safety, and fire officials turned off the gas to the home. There is no timeline for the investigation, but officials said debris was found “several streets over based on topography,” and 10-12 homes were damaged. 

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Immorality of the Two State Solution A never-ending cycle of conflict and destruction. by John Nantz

By on December 6th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-immorality-of-the-two-state-solution/

Joe Biden is a famous incompetent when it comes to foreign policy. Don’t forget, his mentor and former boss, Barack Hussein Obama, quipped that one should never underestimate Biden’s ability to screw up any given policy situation beyond all semblance of rationally expected benefit. Well he didn’t say that exactly, but that’s the gist.

So, it stands to reason, if Biden is in favor of the Two State Solution in Israel, there’s probably something very wrong afoot. It’s the same kind of wrongheadedness that led the notoriously ineffectual U.N. to adopt the policy in 1947. The result of this piece of liberal statecraft has been 76 years of either simmering, or all out war in the Middle East.

The Two State Solution has ensured that the seeds of conflict and destruction sprout into a virulent kudzu that, despite occasional pruning, grows implacably, strangling any hope for peace in the region.

Both Gaza and the West Bank are products of this intractable and untenable state of existence. To put this state of affairs in perspective, imagine if the U.N. had carved out most of the south and the northern Midwest states and implanted ISIS in our midst. At least in terms of proportionate land mass, you have a rough idea of what Israel faces.

As an aside, Biden’s wide open border policy is fashioning a de facto American Two State Solution, pitting illegal aliens against citizens in an explosive environment ripe for demagoguery. Tens of thousands stream across the southern border in anonymity. Military aged males forming battalions of potential Mohammedan insurrectionists.

But to the main point, the plight of “Palestinians” is a result of the Arab world’s refusal to accommodate immigration from Gaza or the West Bank. It seems the Arab states take their borders much more seriously than America. As the current Two State Solution crisis evolves in Gaza, Egypt has refused to allow the incursion of refugees from Gaza. So much for the compassion of Mohammedans, practitioners of the “religion of peace.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

A Possible Future For Hamas Depends On One Thing It’s connected to the tunnels. by Moshe Phillips

By on December 6th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/a-possible-future-for-hamas-depends-on-one-thing/

Just as the world’s media was focused on the first hostages to be freed from Hamas captivity on November 24 a key leader of Hamas named Khaled Mashal gave a video address to a conference of the International Islamic Forum of Parliamentarians stating that “the resistance is in good condition, and although some of its fighters and commanders have been martyred, our tunnels, ammunition and weapons are still intact and we can still maneuver, fire rockets and hit invading tanks.”
Israel and its allies must face the fact that the future of Hamas depends on these tunnels that Mashal specifically boasted about.

One cannot help but connect this statement to the story of four Israeli soldiers who were killed on November 10 by a hidden terrorist explosive device in a booby-trapped tunnel shaft next to a mosque in Gaza’s Beit Hanoun neighborhood.

The father of one of the soldiers, Major Moshe Yedidyah Leiter, grew up in Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The question of the possible future of Hamas in Gaza is one that, tragically, now must be asked since the late November ceasefire has given Hamas the chance to refortify and resupply in their terrorist tunnels.

Dennis Ross, a U.S. envoy to the Middle East, admitted in an op-ed in the Washington Post in August 2014 that he put pressure on Israel to allow Hamas to import cement into Gaza.Ross acknowledged that he knew the cement might be misused. “At times, I argued with Israeli leaders and security officials, telling them they needed to allow more construction materials, including cement, into Gaza so that housing, schools and basic infrastructure could be built,” Ross wrote. “They countered that Hamas would misuse it, and they were right.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Dutch politician Geert Wilders aims to stop the invasion of Europe: Don Feder

By on December 6th, 2023

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/dec/2/dutch-politician-geert-wilders-aims-to-stop-invasi/

Our myna-bird media refer to Dutch politician Geet Wilders, who could be the next prime minister of the Netherlands, as “far right,” hard right,” an “anti-Islam firebrand” and a “Donald Trump clone.” They missed MAGA Republican.

Mr. Wilders won a huge victory in last week’s parliamentary elections. His Party for Freedom went from 17 seats to 37 seats in the lower house — a plurality that puts Mr. Wilders in line to form the next government.

While he ran on a broad range of issues, the Dutch Donald is best known for promising to stem the tide of Muslim immigration.

He’s also pledged to move the Dutch Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Strange how so many “far right” leaders — including the newly elected president of Argentina — want to express their solidarity with the Jewish state. Someone forgot to tell them that they’re supposed to be antisemites.

Mr. Wilders joins a hardy band of immigration skeptics, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who cheered Mr. Wilders’ victory. (“The winds of change are here!”) The Alternative for Germany party, also opposed to open borders, is now in second place in polling, with 20% support. In France, Marine Le Pen waits her turn.

The Netherlands has taken in an average of 200,000 immigrants a year since 2016, most unassimilable.

The Netherlands, whose population is only 16 million, is now home to 1 million Muslims. Since the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh for exposing the treatment of women under Islam, a growing number of Dutch have concluded that the immigrants will not end up wearing wooden shoes and planting tulips.

The Dutch aren’t the only Europeans who are nervous. In France, a new mosque is opened every two weeks, and a Catholic institution is closed during the same period. In a gesture of goodwill, the grand imam of Paris has suggested that decommissioned churches be turned into mosques.

How thoughtful.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Islamic Antisemitism and its Leftist Twin The Unholy Collusion. by Bruce Thornton *****

By on December 6th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/islamic-antisemitism-and-its-leftist-twin/

Ever since Hamas’ savage pogrom against Israeli civilians, protests against Israel have featured blatant antisemitism and eliminationist rhetoric like “from the river to the sea” or “death to Jews,” typically heard from fringe cranks rather than students at prestigious American universities.

These despicable displays and attacks on Jews––the latter up 388% in the U.S., and 1350% in London––have many causes, the most obvious being the widespread decay of educational standards, and the corruption of curricula by leftist political ideologies.

But the significant presence of “international students” from Muslim nations has exacerbated these scenes of a hate now colluding with another one––the left’s visceral hatred of the West and Marxism’s most successful rival, the United States. This collusion represents a lethal threat to our security and interests.

Traditional Christian hatred of Jews smeared them as “Christ-killers” who poison wells and use the blood of murdered Christian children to make Passover matzah. But starting in the 19th century, modern antisemitism demonized Jews as the stooges and villainous agents of the modern capitalist economies. The antisemitism that fueled Hitler’s “final solution” was not about deicide or the “blood libel,” but rather the national-socialist hatred of free-market capitalism; and the scientism of Darwinian racism with its fear of the racial pollution of the superior Nordic race by lesser ethnicities––the “settled science” of the early 20th century.

Traditional Muslim antisemitism, on the other hand, is a product of Islam. In the last few decades, however, it has been rationalized by Western apologists as having “nothing to do with Islam.” Rather, it reflects malign ideas from Europe, and the West’s “colonial” outpost Israel. Attacks on Jews in Europe, for example, by Muslim immigrants are regularly explained in terms of Israel’s “occupation” and its alleged crimes against the Palestinian Arabs. Over two decades ago historian Tony Judt rationalized murders of Jews as “a direct outcome of the festering crisis in the Middle East.”

Moreover, such scapegoating of Israel has also become more deeply embedded in the West’s foreign policy establishment. Testifying before Congress in 2010, General David Petraeus confirmed Osama bin Laden’s pretext for 9/11––“the creation and continuation of Israel”–– and attributed the U.S.’s difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Arab-Israeli conflict that “foments anti-American sentiment,” the “perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” and “anger over the Palestinian question.” Not a word about the 14 centuries of Islamic Jew-hatred and aggression against Christian Europe, and the doctrines and precepts mandating both.

No wonder, then, that these rote clichés provide the ignorant slogans and posters of today’s American “woke” students and their Muslim colleagues. They rationalize for both groups the protestors’ antisemitism, and Hamas’s butchery of Jews, and they furnish excuses for positive, sometimes celebratory references to the Holocaust and the flaunting of swastikas.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

EVs Aren’t The Edsel Of The 21st Century — They’re Far Worse

By on December 6th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/12/06/evs-arent-the-edsel-of-the-21st-century-theyre-far-worse/

Economist Steve Moore recently compared EVs to the ill-fated Edsel, “one of the textbook marketing flops of all time.”

“All the automotive experts and Ford executives said it was a can’t-miss. Henry Ford (the car was named after his son) guaranteed hundreds of thousands of sales. But one big thing went wrong: Nobody ever bothered to ask car buyers what they thought of the new car,” he wrote.

“Given the all-in approach to electric vehicles at Ford and General Motors, it’s clear that Detroit never got the message.”

With all due respect to our good friend Steve, there is one key difference between the Edsel of the 1950s and EVs of the 21st century.

Taxpayers weren’t on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars when the Edsel flopped.

The amount of taxpayer money being lavished on EVs is mind-boggling. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill included $7.5 billion in subsidies to build EV chargers. (Two years later, not one charger has been built with those funds.) President Joe Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” includes billions more in tax incentives for battery manufacturers and EV buyers.

In August, Biden’s Energy Department announced plans to “fuel the auto industry’s transition to electric vehicles with $12 billion in loans and grants.”

This, and much more, is all on top of the $22 billion in federal and state subsidies, regulatory credits, and other breaks that have already been showered on EVs. The Texas Public Policy Foundation estimates that EVs would cost $50,000 more than they do today were it not for all this “help.”

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

The Navy: Dead in the Water? By Brent Ramsey

By on December 6th, 2023

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/12/05/the_navy_dead_in_the_water_996793.html

“Mission: The United States is a maritime nation, and the U.S. Navy protects America at sea. Alongside our allies and partners, we defend freedom, preserve economic prosperity, and keep the seas open and free. Our nation is engaged in long-term competition. To defend American interests around the globe, the U.S. Navy must remain prepared to execute our timeless role, as directed by Congress and the President.” The preceding statement is from the U. S. Navy’s website.

There are many indicators that the Navy is at increasing risk of mission failure.

Missing recruiting goals by thousands for two years in a row, missing its goal for FY 2023 by over 7000 new recruits. The impact of missing recruiting goals is cumulative. Its impact does not subside if in subsequent years deficits are not made up. Lack of manpower adds to the strain of a Navy struggling to meet its national priorities overseas. Failing to recruit enough people to man the Navy is a result of many factors. Since the Afghanistan debacle, the public’s faith in the military has plummeted to new lows. With relatively low unemployment, the competition for young people is high. American youth are less fit, less capable of serving in the military than at any time in our history. Fewer young people want to serve as the political left teaches them to hate our country, academia promotes socialism, and race hustlers malign our country for its supposed racism and white supremacy. Divisive ideologies like Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are now promoted vigorously up and down the chain of command in the Navy. These ideologies alienate the youth of what for generations was the most fertile recruiting grounds, white, southern, Christian Americans. This demographic is now increasingly averse to serving in our new politically correct Navy of DEI, Pride month, correct pronouns, drag queens, and transgender people. If the Navy cannot recruit now for the existing numbers of ships we have, we have no hope whatsoever of filling out the ranks of a Navy with much higher numbers of ships.

Recently, due to the international wars simultaneously in Ukraine and Israel, and high tension in the Taiwan strait/South China Sea, the U.S. Navy had an almost unprecedented 8 Carriers at sea at the same time. The only three not at sea were unavailable due to long-term maintenance. Normally, the Navy might have three or four carriers at sea at one time. Navy ships and crews continually operating wear out rapidly. Typical deployments last 6 months. The USS Ford has been deployed for 7 months and SECDEF just extended its deployment in the eastern Med for the second time. The longer the deployment the more worn out the crew and the higher rates of equipment failures become. As deployments go on for longer and longer, the size of the crew shrinks due to illness, pregnancy, injury, and suicides. Typically ships returning to home port after a lengthy deployment are missing a substantial number of the deploying crew. This puts much more stress and strain on the remaining crewmen. The international situation with multiple wars demanding our attention simultaneously is eroding our Navy’s readiness at a high rate. When the ships and their crews wear out, there will be no alternative but to return them to port for re-fit and rest for the crews regardless of whatever pressing mission the ship is on. That the Navy does not have enough ships is now obvious to even the most casual observer when multiple hot spots in distant seas occur. When the proverbial stuff hits the fan, the very first question everyone, including the President asks is, “Where is the nearest carrier?”
The Navy’s high suicide rate over a lengthy period demonstrates the leadership’s tragically being unable to ameliorate the problem.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Liz Peek: COP28 climate conference is not just the Super Bowl of virtue signaling. It’s doing real damage

By on December 6th, 2023

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/cop28-climate-conference-just-super-bowl-virtue-signaling-real-damage

It is tempting to dismiss COP28 as the Super Bowl of virtue signaling. But that would be to ignore the massive damage being done to our country by the unrealistic and costly climate policies of the Biden White House. The administration’s wrong-headed “leadership” on phasing out fossil fuels, which currently provide nearly 80% of U.S. energy, is a highlight of COP28; their policies are making Americans poorer and less secure.   

To wit: since Joe Biden took office, electricity prices have soared 24%; during President Trump’s four years in office, average electricity prices actually declined. 

COP 28, the annual climate talkathon, has had its light moments. Some 80,000 attendees are participating, a large number of whom are traveling by emissions-spewing private jets. Over the weekend, some of those planes were frozen to icy runways in Munich as global warming was trumped by unseasonal cold and blizzards which blanketed much of Europe.   

Moreover, the event is being held in Abu Dhabi, a major oil producing nation, and hosted by Sultan Al Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). In the lead-up to the meeting, leaked briefing documents revealed Jaber was plotting to use his position as host to negotiate new oil and gas deals with foreign governments, even as a central theme of COP28 was the phase-out fossil fuels.  

Worse, a video from two weeks ago surfaced on Monday in which Jaber questioned the entire premise behind ditching oil, gas and coal.  “There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5,” Al Jaber said. He was also critical of the questioner, saying he had anticipated a “sober and mature conversation” not an “alarmist” one. 

The Biden White House embraces extreme climate alarmism, and is sending scores of officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Climate Czar John Kerry to COP 28. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Vivek is right: America is devolving into tyranny We can already see the troops deployed and the battle lines drawn: Roger Kimball

By on December 6th, 2023

https://thespectator.com/topic/vivek-ramaswamy-right-america-devolving-into-tyranny/

Many commentators (including yours truly) have pointed out that America is divided more now than it has been since the late 1850s and the run up to the Civil War. But as usual, I may have understated the case. 

That, anyway, is what Vivek Ramaswamy would say. In a remarkable, just-published interview with Tom Klingenstein, Ramaswamy several time insists that we are not in a pre-war situation. It’s worse than that. “We are,” he insists, “absolutely in a war with the fate of the country at stake.”

Hyperbolic? I don’t think so. The war, he acknowledges, could and likely will get worse. But we can already see the troops deployed and the battle lines drawn. 

On one side are those who believe in the founding ideals of America, the ideals summed up in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, at the center of which are the ideals of individual liberty, freedom of speech and the rule of law. 

On the other side are the “woke” haters of America as traditionally defined. These are the people who seek to tear the blindfold off the statues of justice at our court houses because, they assert, impartial justice is racist. What they want is not individual liberty, but group prerogatives based on sex, race or some other badge of supposed victimhood. 

Pace well-meaning politicians and bureaucrats, compromise between these two groups is not possible because the “wokerati” regards those who dissent not as people with different opinions but as heretics. And heretics — whether the issue be race, the climate, Covid, Hamas or this week’s preferred species of sexual exotica — cannot only be met with utter suppression. “You know you are in a war,” Ramaswamy notes, “when there is no middle ground, no room to compromise.” That’s where we are now. 

I think it very unlikely that Ramaswamy will be moving into 1600 Pennsylvania come January 2025. But he is telling the world some hard and vital truths. I hope the political class, as well as ordinary Americans, will pay him heed. Noting the many ways the financial sector, the law and the corporate and academic worlds have been “weaponized” against traditional American values, he warns that “if we lose this war, we will have full-fledged tyranny. You see, if people are free, then there will be group differences in outcomes because often groups have different preferences and talents. The only way you can make groups equal in terms of outcome is by force.” 

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HISTORY Comments turned off

Chanukah guide for the perplexed, 2023 Amb.(Retired) Yoram Ettinger

By on December 5th, 2023

CHANUKAH- DECEMBER 7-15

1. According to Israel’s Founding Father, David Ben Gurion: Chanukah commemorates “the struggle of the Maccabees, which was one of the most dramatic clashes of civilizations in human history, not merely a political-military struggle against foreign oppression…. Unlike many peoples, the meager Jewish people did not assimilate.  The Jewish people prevailed, won, sustained and enhanced their independence and unique civilization…. It was the spirit of the people, rather than the failed spirit of the establishment, which enabled the Hasmoneans to overcome one of the most magnificent spiritual, political and military challenges in Jewish history….” (Uniqueness and Destiny, pp 20-22, David Ben Gurion, IDF Publishing, 1953).

2. A Jewish national liberation holiday.  Chanukah (evening of December 7 – December 15, 2023) is the only Jewish holiday that commemorates an ancient national liberation struggle in the Land of Israel, unlike the national liberation holidays, Passover, Sukkot/Tabernacles and Shavu’ot/Pentecost, which commemorate the liberation from slavery in Egypt to independence in the land of Israel, and unlike Purim, which commemorates liberation from a Persian attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.

3. Chanukah and the Land of Israel.  When ordered by Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid region to end the Jewish “occupation” of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Gaza, Gezer and Akron, Shimon the Maccabee responded: “We have not occupied a foreign land…. We have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation (Book of Maccabees A: 15:33).”

Chanukah highlights the centrality of the Land of Israel in the formation of Jewish history, religion, culture and language. The mountain ridges of Judea and Southern Samaria (the West Bank) were the platform for the Maccabean military battles: Mitzpah (the burial site of the Prophet Samuel, overlooking Jerusalem), Beth El (the site of the Ark of the Covenant and Judah the Maccabee’s initial headquarters), Beth Horon (Judah’s victory over Seron), Hadashah (Judah’s victory over Nicanor), Beth Zur (Judah’s victory over Lysias), Ma’aleh Levona (Judah’s victory over Apolonius), Adora’yim (a Maccabean fortress), Eleazar (named after Mattityahu’s youngest Maccabee son), Beit Zachariya (Judah’s first defeat), Ba’al Hatzor (where Judah was defeated and killed), Te’qoah, Mikhmash and Gophnah (bases of Shimon and Yonatan), the Judean Desert, etc.

4. Historical context  Chanukah is narrated in the four Books of the Maccabees, The Scroll of Antiochus and The Wars of the Jews.

In 323 BCE, following the death of Alexander the Great (Alexander III) who held Judaism in high esteem, the Greek Empire was split into three independent and rival mini-empires: Greece, Seleucid/Syria and Ptolemaic/Egypt.

In 175 BCE, the Seleucid/Syrian Emperor Antiochus (IV) Epiphanes claimed the Land of Israel. He suspected that the Jews were allies of his Ptolemaic/Egyptian enemy.  The Seleucid emperor was known for eccentric behavior, hence his name, Epiphanes, which means “divine manifestation.”  He aimed to exterminate Judaism and convert Jews to Hellenism. In 169 BCE, he devastated Jerusalem, attempting to decimate the Jewish population, and outlaw the practice of Judaism.

In 166/7 BCE, a Jewish rebellion was led by the non-establishment Hasmonean (Maccabee) family from the rural town of Modi’in, half-way between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean.  The rebellion was headed by Mattityahu, the priest, and his five sons, Yochanan, Judah, Shimon, Yonatan and Eleazar, who fought the Seleucid occupier and restored Jewish independence.  The Hasmonean dynasty was replete with external and internal wars and lasted until 37 BCE, when Herod the Great (a proxy of Rome) defeated Antigonus II Mattathias.

5. The reputation of Jews as superb warriors was reaffirmed by the success of the Maccabees on the battlefield. In fact, they were frequently hired as mercenaries by Egypt, Syria, Carthage, Rome and other global and regional powers.

6. The significance of Chanukah. Chanukah celebrates the Maccabean-led national liberation by conducting in-house family education and lighting candles for 8 days in commemoration of the re-inauguration of Jerusalem’s Jewish Temple and its Menorah (candelabra).

The Hebrew words Chanukah (חנוכה), inauguration (חנוכ) and education ((חנוך possess the same root.

7. As was prophesized by the Prophet Hagai in 520 BCE, the re-inauguration of the Temple took place on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, which is the month of miracles, such as the post-flood appearance of Noah’s rainbow, the completion of the construction of the Holy Ark by Moses, the laying of the foundations of the Second Temple by Nehemiah, etc.

In 1777, Chanukah candles were lit during the most critical battle at Valley Forge, which solidified the victory of George Washington’s Continental Army over the British monarchy.

The 25th Hebrew word in Genesis is “light,” and the 25th stop during the Exodus was Hashmona (the same Hebrew spelling as Hasmonean-Maccabees).

The first day of Chanukah is celebrated when daylight hours are equal to darkness hours – and when moonlight is hardly noticed – ushering in brighter days.

8. Chanukah highlights the defeat of darkness, disbelief, forgetfulness and pessimism by the spirit of light, faith, commemoration and optimism.

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