A Chanukah Story

- as told by Rabbi YY Jacobson:

A Pot of Margarine

At the conclusion of every 16-hour work day in the hell called Bergen-Belsen, the block commander liked to have some fun with his Jews.

Now, the meal at the end of the day consisted of old dry bread, filthy watery soup and a pot of something like margarine made from vegetable fat.

The margarine was scooped out of a large tub, and after the meal had been distributed and the tub was empty, the commander allowed the starving prisoners to jump into the empty tub and lick the remaining margarine from the walls of the tub. The sight of starving Jews licking up bits of margarine provided nightly entertainment for the commander and his guards.

One prisoner, however, refused to be a part of the commander's show. Though like all the rest he was a withered, starving shadow of a man aged far beyond his years, still, he would never allow himself to scavenge for a lick of margarine. The other prisoners called him Elijah. In some unspoken way, the others drew strength from Elijah's refusal to join the frenzy. Then, one night, something happened that seemed to shatter whatever spirit remained in the prisoners.

Elijah cracked. All at once he threw himself into the greasy vat and furiously rolled around like a crazed beast.

And how the commander howled. It was a deep belly laugh of satanic satisfaction. The last of the Jews had been broken.

Later, after the guards left and the Jews were in their barracks, Elijah took off his shirt and began to tear it to shreds. The others looked on in silence. Had Elijah gone mad? He would study the shirt for a moment, carefully looking it over, as if searching for some exact location, and then tear that area into a strip. He looked up. His eyes were on fire.

"Do you know what tonight is?" he demanded.

"Tonight is the first night of Chanukah." Elijah studied the shirt again, finding another choice spot to tear. A spot he had purposely saturated with grease from his rolling in the margarine tub.

That night Elijah led the others in the lighting of the Chanukah flames. The wicks came from the strips of his shirt, and the bits of margarine Elijah had furiously scavenged was the oil.

Elijah's light continues to shine to this very day. In his world, the times of plenty and times of famine were never disconnected.

3 NY Yankee Baseball Caps

Speaking of Donald Trump, here's a 1st-hand story about his son-in-law.

I had taken my kid and his two friends to a Yankees' game at Yankee Stadium several years ago one sunny afternoon. After the game, on the way out of the stadium, we passed Bronx vendors selling overpriced baseball caps. I wasn’t going to shell out $28 per Yankee-logo cap.

We climbed the stairs of the nearby subway station and got into the train. Just as I entered, I noticed two fellows hurrying up the remaining steps to make it before the subway doors shut. I held the door open for them.

One of the two saw the kids sitting next to me. Right away he came over and gave each kid a brand new NY Yankees baseball cap! He was holding 4 of them under his arm and now he was left with one. His friend smiled approvingly.

Now I happen to have a long beard, sport a Chabad fedora and wear my tzitzis out, definitely looking of Jewish persuasion. And the boys were wearing their kippahs.

Seeing an opportunity to inject some Judaism, I got up and walked over to the other one. “Are you Jewish?”, I asked. My impression is these young men had no head covering.

“Not only am I Jewish”, said he, “I’m Orthodox”! That took wind out of my expected conversation.

“Where do you daven”, I asked. He mentioned a Lower East Side location, also mentioning the synagogue he davened at. I asked him what it is he does and he said he runs a newspaper, the NY Observer.

At home, out of sheer curiosity, I looked up that journal I never heard of, did a little research and discovered I had met Jared Kushner and his good friend, the one who handed the kids the baseball hats. His friend was the journal’s editor-in-chief, at the time retiring from his job to seek another challenge. I think he lived in Westchester. His name was Peter Kaplan. I never did get to speak to him. The few words I spoke were with the young Kushner.

They impressed me as two successful, smart fellows who were naturally kind. They got off in lower Manhattan; We kept going to Brooklyn.

This story happened years before Trump became a household word. I knew practically nothing of him back then.

I relay this story now only because I like Trump and, as you see, I also regard favorably his son-in-law.