In a rare occurrence among student tours of the Holy Land, a group of 23 American Jewish college students brought some Chanukah joy to a secretive Israeli army base near the Lebanese border. Bearing candles and the traditional fried jelly doughnuts known in Hebrew as sufganiyot, the participants of the IsraeLinks program joined their uniformed counterparts for dinner and a mass menorah lighting that, in the words of one soldier, gave his platoon “the strength to go on.”
But the Tuesday night visit, coming on the last of Chanukah’s eight nights, also imparted strength to the base’s visitors, who trekked to the outpost at the end of their first full day on a two-week intensive tour run by the Chabad on Campus International Foundation.
“My favorite part of today wasn’t the singing and dancing, but when we lit the menorah all together,” said Laura Vitellio, 21, who attends the University of Delaware. “When you’re lighting the menorah in the basement of an army base, it proves that there are really people out there lighting up the world.”
The journey marked a departure from normal for IsraeLinks, which brings past participants of Taglit-Birthright Israel trips back to the Holy Land for two weeks of intensive textual-based study, community service and in-depth tours. This is the first time the Chabad on Campus project has run a winter contingent and according to its program director, Rabbi Yossi Witkes, the outing to the army base – its location undisclosed for security reasons – served as a perfect illustration of the Chanukah message. It also was a great way to “give back.”
“We’re not only bringing Jewish students to Israel,” said Witkes. “We’re connecting them to the Holy Land.”
“The whole point is to both create future Jewish leaders,” added Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive vice president of the Chabad on Campus International Foundation, “and at the same time, give them the opportunities to make a spiritual investment in the land of their forefathers.”
In his remarks at dinner, one soldier noted that he and his platoon frequently find themselves isolated for weeks at a time.
“We don’t have a lot of visitors most of the time,” he pointed out. “Every visit like this, we see you proud of us and that gives us strength. The guys stand out there in the cold defending us, defending you, and I think each time they see each one of you and the brightness you have in your eyes, it gives them the strength to go on.”
For the students, the visit offered a unique chance to see how their contemporaries live such vastly different lives. But as they mingled about a table decorated with menorahs aglow with the light of all eight candles burning bright, their conversations hinged on points of unity: whether the shared love of a certain song or the same commitment to their Jewish heritage.
“It was really fun,” remarked Noah Gross, 21, a student from Drexel University in Philadelphia. “We just lit the menorah with a bunch of Israeli soldiers. They’re the same age as us, but they’re protecting this country, which is crazy.”
Trip leader Rabbi Zalman Bluming, director of the Chabad-Lubavitch center serving Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, referred to the Jewish victory more than 2,000 years ago that set the stage for the very first Chanukah, the miraculous rededication of the Holy Temple using a single jar of unblemished oil.
“For eight days, we’ve celebrated the miracle of Chanukah,” he said. “Tonight, we celebrate the Maccabees, and the real-life warriors we have by our sides.”
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