by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As the 1880s came to a close, the mention in Los Angeles newspapers of the celebration of Hanukkah was very limited then and through most of the Nineties. This may have been due largely to the difficult economic times that came with the bust following the Boom of the Eighties, which mostly took place during the administration of Mayor William H. Workman, lasting from 1886 to 1888, and which was continued through much of the 1890s when a national depression (which burst forth in 1893) and several years of drought took place.
Moreover, the Congregation B’nai B’rith changed rabbis in 1889, with Abraham Blum (1843-1921) becoming the third man in that role, following Emanuel Schreiber (1885-1889) and Abraham W. Edelman (1862-1885). A native of Quatzenheim, in the oft-disputed territory of Alsace-Lorraine, now part of France, and northwest of Strasbourg, Blum completed his rabbinical studies at age 17 in a nearby city and migrated to the United States a half-dozen years later.
He served in rabbinates and taught French in Ohio, Texas and West Virginia, with a stretch of 16 years spent in Galveston, where he also earned a medical degree. When he came to Los Angeles and the Congregation B’nai B’rith, as explained by the Jewish Museum of the American West, “the city was going through a serious economic downturn that affected the synagogue, as well as relations between the rabbi and the Board of Directors.”
It was also noted that Blum’s wife, formerly Hanna Henriques, became the first woman principal of the Sabbath School, which grew in numbers, while he resuscitated The Associated Charities of Los Angeles, founded by Schreiber. Further, the Reform movement that included his predecessor led Orthodox congregants to leave, making Blum’s rabbinate more challenging as the situation was “placing a bigger strain on the finances of the synagogue.” Its choir was disbanded and the organist let go, while, with Hanukkah not being one of the most important Jewish holidays, it may be that its festivities were allowed to lapse.
The Los Angeles Express of 15 December 1890 did tersely note that,
During the past week the victory of the Maccabees has been appropriately celebrated at the Jewish synagogue, on Broadway [that name recently replacing the thoroughfare’s original moniker of Fort Street] under the direction of Rev. Dr. Blum.
Searching the Angel City’s newspapers during the period 1891-1897, however, did not result in any located examples of Hanukkah celebrations. Blum, who apparently angered B’nai B’rith directors by applying for a part-time job teaching French at Los Angeles High School, was informed in 1894 that he was to be rabbi for one more year, but he balked at leaving, so was fired. He relocated to New York City, where he was a hospital rabbi and then superintendent of another facility before becoming the first Jewish chaplain for the New York Police Department, holding that position until his death. A son, Ralph, was an attorney and Hollywood talent agent and was the husband of movie star Carmel Myers (whose father was a rabbi).
Blum’s successor was Michael (a.k.a. Moses) G. Solomon (1868-1927), who was from what is now Poznan, Poland, but then known as Posen under Prussian rule. He migrated while young to America with his family and was educated at City College of New York and, simultaneously, at the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College in the River City. Following his studies, he was a rabbi for two years at Youngstown, Ohio, before relocating to Los Angeles to assume the rabbinate for the Congregation B’nai B’rith.
The Congregation vacated the Broadway synagogue building, rented in some locations and, then, in late 1895 plans were drawn by Abram M. Edelman, the architect and son of former Rabbi Abraham W. Edelman, for a temple at the northeast corner of Hope and 9th streets, with the edifice completed the following year.
Solomon solidified the Reform association for the Congregation and his idea of equal treatment of children in the Sabbath School ruffled feathers among the more well-to-do members. The directors advertised for a new rabbi, though he was elected for two more years. He left his rabbinate in 1899, briefly served in another Reform synagogue in the Angel City and then removed to New Jersey. In 1903, he came back to Los Angeles and was admitted to the bar.
After several years, we find the celebration of Hanukkah returning in 1898, during the end of Solomon’s tenure. The 8 December issue of the Los Angeles Express reported, under the heading of “Toast of the Maccabees,” that, “the orthodox Jews began last evening the celebration of the feast of the Maccabees, or the ‘feast of dedication.'” The next day’s number remarked that the event was Chanucah and that “it commemorates one of the most remarkable events in the history of Judaism.”
The article briefly recounted the history of the Maccabees restoring the temple in Jerusalem for “divine worship,” and that “an eight-day jubilee was held, therefore the period of Chanucah is extended to eight days.” It then informed readers that “there are no special features connected with this feast except the lighting of candles, one the first evening, and an additional one each succeeding evening until there are eight beside the Shames, the candle with which the others are lit.” The piece concluded that Rabbi Solomon would sermonize on “Religious Sentiment.”
With the title of “Feast of the Maccabees,” the Los Angeles Herald of the 8th concisely commented that “the celebration of the feast of the Maccabees began last evening among the orthodox Jewish people. It also provided some historical background of the Temple’s restoration to the Jews by the Maccabees in fighting against the Seleucids, while concluding that “this festival is called the ‘feast of dedication.'”
In its edition of the 12th and under the heading of “Hebrew School,” the paper reported on pupils celebrating “Chanuka” at a mid-afternoon feast and it was mentioned that,
The children carried out almost the entire program of the occasion. They recited Hebrew poems translated into English, recounting the story of the victory and its significance as a festival. During the recitation of the benediction and responses by the pupils, one of the little boys performed the ceremony of lighting the four candles, one being added each day while the feast continues. The lights are typical of truth and signify its ultimate triumph over the darkness of error.
Dr. Arndt, principal of the school, spoke to his charges on “The Insignificant to the Significant,” while Rabbi Solomon discussed “the meanings of the customs,” presumably of the Hanukkah holiday. Professor Loeb, who taught music for the institution as a volunteer, conducted the children in singing patriotic songs—1898 was the year of the Spanish-American War—including “America,” “Red, White and Blue,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The account ended with the note that,
At the close of the exercises each child received a bag of candy. Many of the parents were present and expressed themsel[ves] highly gratified at the program of the afternoon and the rapid progress of the children.
In March 1897, Los Angeles’ first Jewish newspaper, the B’nai B’rith Messenger was launched by Lionel Edwards, who came from San Francisco where a paper of that name existed. For close to two decades, the editor was Victor Harris, a resident with the Edwards family and who an ardent Zionist.
Few issues of the paper in its earliest days have survived, apparently, but the 9 December 1898 edition does and it covered the festivities, telling its readers, “last evening began the feast of the Maccabees, called in Hebrew “Chanucah.” It is celebrated in commemoration of one of the most remarkable events that happened to our nation in times past.” We know where the Express got its information, as it quoted nearly verbatim from the Messenger about the history involving the battle led by Judah Maccabee, the “eight-day jubilee” and the “no special features” other than the candle lighting, though the latter did add that there were “some blessings and praises pronounced.”
In 1899, the Congregation B’nai B’rith welcomed its fourth rabbi, Sigmund Hecht (1849-1925), who hailed from Hlinik, in what is now Slovakia, then controlled by Hungary. He was educated by his father in Zilina, another Slovakian town before going to Vienna to complete high school before going on to seminary and university work. He became a rabbi at Bistrita in Romania and, after his migration to America, he was a rabbi in Montgomery, Alabama from 1876 to 1888, during which time he earned his doctorate in divinity from the University of Alabama. For eleven years, he had a rabbinate in Milwaukee and then came to the Angel City, serving the B’nai B’rith congregation for two decades, until his retirement in 1919.
The Los Angeles Record of 1 December 1899 briefly informed its readers that “the Feast of Dedication will be observed tonight art B’nai B’rith temple” with Rabbi Hecht to sermonize on “Zionists or Maccabees” and to do so again the following morning. The same date’s Times added that the Hanukkah commemoration was augmentation to the regular Sabbath services at the synagogue. The Record of the next day provided some quotes from Hecht’s sermon, coming at a time when Zionism was gaining rapidly in adherents for a return to Jews to a sovereign homeland in Palestine, in which he observed that “the modern Jew is often found to be [su]premely indifferent to the fountain-head of his salvation” in lacking the observation of religious devotions, yet there were those who “have been known to grow enthusiastic in the cause of Judaism at a time when the unjust, or cruel world shamefully discriminated against the Jew.”
As to the holiday at hand, the rabbi pronounced that, “at such times, if not oftener, the Maccabean spirit has come upon them, proving them the children of God.” He continued,
We celebrate tonight the feast of Chanuka, the feast of dedication, the feast of light, we kindle the tapers of old in form, if not in substance, for the sake of reviving the lessons which the Maccabean heroes teach throughout the centuries that are gone, for the centuries yet to come.
Chanuka is not us a glorification of the defeat of the Syrians, but rather the anniversary of the preservation of Judaism, and as such it ought to appeal powerfully to every faithful son of the ancient covenant, especially at a time like this when the forces of disintegration are at play again . . . in the guise of materialism . . .
. . . nothing short of a revival of the Maccabean spirit can avail. Zionism, in the political sense of the word, is an anachronism, the spirit that is needed today and the manifestation of which would be as timely today as it was 2000 years ago, is the spirit of the Maccabeans.
In its coverage, also on the 2nd, the Express looks to have published Hecht’s sermon in full, under the title of “Chanukah Festival Is Celebrated.” Notably, the paper observed that “electric candles, to represent the candles of the temple [in Jerusalem] at that time” of the Maccabean rededication “had been placed about the pulpit at B’nai B’rith, and these made the services much more realistic than they otherwise would have been.”
Hecht told his congregation that “we were faithless to our past were we to allow this anniversary of a glorious event, of a glorious past, to come and go without taking notice of it . . . [this recollection] to stir up in the hearts of our sons and daughters, the love for and the admiration of of such shining examples of right and duty.” The rabbi warned that history does repeat and “we must confine ourselves in this hour to a phase of Judaism which has but recently developed . . . and such an instance is furnished by so-called Zionism.”
Hecht expressed sympathy for the persecuted who looked for “a reestablishment of a political Zion on Palestinian soil” but he insisted that “the longing of a revival of a Jewish state under the government of a lineal descendant of David is unhistorical, and . . . un-American.” Moreover, the rabbi asserted, “we belong politically to the country in which we were born, or which we have adopted; we form a part of the people in whose midst we live, and our most sacred duty . . . is to promote its welfare.” In those nations where Jews were denied fundamental rights, “we must persist in acting the part of loyal citizens, thus enforcing in God’s own time, the exercise of justice and humanity.”
Uttering that Zionism was an anachronistic concept, the rabbi concluded that the Maccabean ideal and spirit “has come down in glory to this day,” so he went on,
Who will be the successors of this noble, inspired band? Where are the young men and women who will answer to the call of their endangered patrimony. Here I am, ready to do battle for honor, principle and conviction. Let them come forward and prove anew at this critical time that they are members of the people of God, children who do not deceive the hopes of their elders, the expectations of their God. Amen.
As the 19th century came to a close, Rabbi Edelman wrote of Hanukkah in two successive issues of the Express. In the 15 December 1900 issue, he quoted other rabbis that the lighting of candles on Chanukah “is to strengthen us in our belief, that however dark and gloomy our hopes and prospects may appear, yet, in the hour of the deepest grief and affliction, light comes from above, from God. And small as this light of encouragement and comfort may prove at first it has often grown to an eight-fold luster and power.”
Edelman added that “no festival is really more suited for a children’s festival than out [our] Chanukah” because the story of the Maccabean heroes “are most beautiful pictures of national greatness and religious endurance, which ought to inspire our young with enthusiastic attachment and love for their inherited faith.” The rabbi also cited the Talmud in noting that “these Chanukah lights are also emblems of God’s commandments” because, just as the candle lighting needed oil and wicks, “so can the spirit of religion have no effect, nor can it be fully possessed without ceremonies.” Any Jew who did not fully participate in their religion and yet claimed to be imbued with its spirit were “but a nominal Jew . . . a Jew but in mere name.” Edelman ended with the exhortation,
Let us take the luminous figures of the heroic Maccabees as worthy patterns of Jewish virtue and manhood. Let us kindle the Chanukah lights in our synagogues, in our religious school rooms, in our homes, so that they may teach and urge upon us to illumine in our heart and in the hearts of our children the light of love and reverence for God, for our sacred religion, for the holy Torah, for the synagogue and for our homes.
The following week, Edelman wrote that the lighting of candles for Hanukkah “are to serve us as the symbol ‘of joy and hope,’ and to teach us the lesson of immortality; and that God, who plunges us into gloom and darkness, never forsakes us, but leads us again into cheerfulness and light.” The sublime enthusiasm and independence of the Maccabees “to vindicate the whole prestige and the glorious fame of their ancient and sacred religion,” and which was not appreciated enough by the modern Jew, the rabbi continued, was such that “to me this historical Chanukah lesson is one of the grandest of Jewish life.” This was because the Maccabees form the types and representatives of everything that is good, noble, brave and soul-inspiring in the character and disposition of our much persecuted and ancient race.”
It was one thing to erect monuments in gold, granite, marble, stone or other materials, but, declared Edelman, “there is a monument more precious than any of those” and these “were the little lights which we annually begin to kindle” at Hanukkah “and with every new light we kindle we add new life, new luster and new fame to the great name of this heroic family of Maccabees.” In remembering this vital event of reclaiming the temple at Jerusalem, he concluded,
Let, therefore, every returning Chanukah festival bring new light into every Jewish heart and make us feel honored of the Jewish race, religion and history. But let us ever be tolerant towards every one who differs from us in all matters of faith and belief, because Judaism teaches that the good of all nations and creeds will have a share in future life. Let all those who are brought up in the faith of Judaism imitate the noble example of the immortal spirits of the Maccabees and learn from them to honor and revere, to live and die for a religion that has been assailed and persecuted for ages and ages, but which also ever been comforted, consoled and cheered by the prophets of old that all religions will unite into one; that this religion will be the “religion of humanity. And on that day the eternal Lord God will be one and his great and mighty name will be one forever more.
The most recent Bondi Beach Hanukkah shooting not only brought back memories of the October 7 attacks in 2023, but also prompted me to trace further back in history to an earlier period prior to the Christian era, when Jews were already disliked in the Roman world. Thus, a fundamental question was hereby triggered: Why has antisemitism endured for so long and spread so widely?
I believe hatred does not arise suddenly. It evolves. Hatred grows out of hostility; hostility stems from dislike; and dislike often begins with difference – whether cultural, religious, social, or value-based. That is, once sustained, prolonged, and reinforced, dislike can evolve into hatred, and even racial hatred.
Most hatred wanes or disappears within years or, at most a few generations. As to why a hatred in history survives beyond centuries and evolves into a long-standing tradition, I believe one of two things is usually at work. Either the targeted group persistently behaves in ways perceived as unacceptable and inciting hostility or, hatred itself is taught and encouraged through public or family education, year after year and generation after generation. Evidently, antisemitism belongs to the latter.