A Jewish woman lights a candle for the festival of Hanukkah at the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem. Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images The eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah commemorates ancient Jews’ victory over the powerful Seleucid empire, which ruled much of the Middle East from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.… Continue reading This Hanukkah, learn about the holiday’s forgotten heroes: Women
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The eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah commemorates ancient Jews’ victory over the powerful Seleucid empire, which ruled much of the Middle East from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.
On the surface, it’s a story of male heroism. A ragtag rebel force led by a rural priest and his five sons, called the Maccabees, freed the Jews from oppressive rulers. Hanukkah, which means “rededication” in Hebrew, celebrates the Maccabees’ victory, which allowed the Jews to rededicate their temple in Jerusalem, the center of ancient Jewish worship.
But as a professor of Jewish history, I believe that seeing Hanukkah this way misses the inspiring women who were prominent in the earliest tellings of the story.
The bravery of a young widow named Judith is at the heart of an ancient book that bears her name. The heroism of a second woman, an unnamed mother of seven sons, appears in a book known as 2 Maccabees.
Saving Jerusalem
These books are not included in the Hebrew scriptures, but appear in other collections of religious texts known as the Septuagint and the Apocrypha.
According to these texts, Judith was a young Israelite widow in a town called Bethulia, strategically situated on a mountain pass into Jerusalem. To besiege Jerusalem, the Seleucid army first needed to capture Bethulia.
Facing such a formidable enemy, the townsfolk were terrified. Unless God immediately intervened, they decided, they would simply surrender. Enslavement was preferable to certain death.
But Judith scolded the local leaders for testing God, and was brave enough to take matters into her own hands. Removing her widow’s clothing, she entered the enemy camp. She beguiled the Seleucid general, Holofernes, with her beauty, and promised to give her people over to him. Hoping to seduce her, Holofernes prepared a feast. By the time his entourage left him alone with Judith, he was drunk and asleep.
Now she carried out her plan: cutting off his head and escaping back to Bethulia. The following morning, the discovery of Holofernes’ headless body left the Seleucid army trembling with fear. Soldiers fled by every available path as Bethulia’s Jews, recovering their courage, rushed in and slaughtered them. Judith’s bravery saved her town and, with it, Jerusalem.
The book of 2 Maccabees, Chapter 7, meanwhile, relates the story of an unnamed Jewish mother and her seven sons, who were seized by the Seleucids.
Emperor Antiochus commanded that they eat pork, which is forbidden by the Torah, to show their obedience to him. One at a time, the sons refused. An enraged Antiochus subjected them to unspeakable torture. Each son withstood the ordeal and is portrayed as a model of bravery. Resurrection awaits those who die in the service of God, they proclaimed, while for Antiochus and his followers, only death and divine punishment lay ahead.
Throughout these ordeals, their mother encouraged her sons to accept their suffering. “She reinforced her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage,” as 2 Maccabees relates, and admonished her sons to remember their coming reward from God.
Having killed the first six brothers, Antiochus promised the youngest a fortune if only he would reject his faith. His mother told the boy, “Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers.” The story in 2 Maccabees ends with the simple statement that, after her sons’ deaths, the mother also died.
Later retellings give the mother a name. Most commonly, she is called Hannah, based on a detail in the biblical book of 1 Samuel. In this section, called the “prayer of Hannah,” the prophet Samuel’s mother refers to herself as having borne seven children.
Working with God
Jewish educator and author Erica Brown has emphasized a lesson we should learn from the story of Judith, one that emerges from 2 Maccabees as well. “Just like the Hanukkah story generally, the message of these texts is that it’s not always the likely candidates who save the day,” she writes. “Sometimes salvation comes when you least expect it, from those who are least likely to deliver it.”
Three hundred years after the Maccabean revolt, Judaism’s earliest rabbis stressed a similar message. Adding a new focus to Hanukkah, they spoke of a divine miracle that occurred when the ancient Jews took back the Temple and wanted to relight the holy “eternal flame” inside. They found just one small vessel of oil, sufficient to light the flame for only one day – but it lasted eight days, giving them time to produce a new supply.
As the influential rabbi David Hartman pointed out, the Hanukkah story celebrates “our people’s strength to live without guarantees of success.” Some ordinary person, he points out, took the initiative to rekindle the eternal flame, despite how futile doing so may have seemed.
Ever since, Judaism has increasingly focused on the interaction of the human and the divine. The Hanukkah story teaches listeners that they all must play a part to repair a hurting world. Not everyone needs to be a Judith or Hannah; but, like them, we humans can’t wait for God to take care of it.
In synagogues, one of the readings for the week during Hanukkah is from the prophet Zechariah, who proclaimed, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” These words succinctly capture the meaning of Hanukkah and express what Jews might think about while lighting the Hanukkah candles: our responsibility to act in the spirit of God to create the miracles the world needs to become a place of beauty, equity and freedom.
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Alan Avery-Peck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
President Joe Biden’s staff has dispatched invitations to a “Menorah Lighting to be held at the White House” on Dec. 1, the evening when the fourth candle of the eight-day festival of Hanukkah will be lit. The event promises to be quite different from last year’s event, hosted by Donald Trump.
President Trump in 2020 held what he called a “Hanukkah Reception” in midafternoon before Hanukkah began. The reception was a heavily partisan affair, no candles were lit, much food was consumed, and some of the participants went maskless, the raging COVID epidemic notwithstanding. Most Democrats as well as many Jewish leaders stayed home.
President Biden’s “menorah lighting,” by contrast, promises to privilege ritual over reception, focusing on the lighting of the traditional Hanukkah candelabrum itself. Reportedly, the event will be nonpartisan, with COVID-19 precautions enforced. According to the Jewish Forward, no food or drink will be served at all, so masks won’t even need to be lifted. In addition, the guest list has been severely pared down to encourage social distancing – so much so that a senior White House official was quoted as saying it would likely be the smallest White House Hanukkah party in history.
The vice president and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff are slated to be among those in attendance, and for the first time the ceremony will be livestreamed. On Nov. 28, Emhoff also attended the lighting of the National Menorah on the Washington Ellipse.
Overlooked amid these carefully parsed details is a question that, to me, as a historian of American Jewish life and a scholar of American religion, seems far more fascinating and important: How did the office of the president of the United States come to hold official White House menorah lightings and Hanukkah parties in the first place?
White House traditions
For most of American history, the only December holiday that gained White House recognition was Christmas. President John Adams and first lady Abigail Adams, back in 1800, threw the first White House Christmas party, a modest affair, planned with their 4-year-old granddaughter in mind, and with invitations sent to selected government officials and their children.
In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge inaugurated the practice of lighting an official White House Christmas tree. He also delivered the first formal presidential Christmas message. His message assumed, as most Americans of that time did, that everybody celebrated Christmas.
President Jimmy Carter at Lafayette Park in Washington D.C. for the Hanukkah menorah lighting in 1979.White House
It displayed, according to The Washington Post, “the reverence of a Christian people giving at the seat of their government the expression of their praise for ‘the King of kings’ on the eve of the anniversary of His birth.” Neither Adams nor Coolidge uttered one word about Hanukkah.
Official notice of Hanukkah waited another half-century – until 1979 – by which time Jews had become much more visible as members of American society and government. Ironically, the president who first paid attention to Hanukkah was Jimmy Carter, although he wasn’t the Jewish community’s favorite Democratic candidate. When he ran for reelection in 1980, he got less than 50% of the Jewish vote – less than any Democrat since 1928.
In 1979, following weeks of seclusion in the White House after Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, seizing 52 diplomats and citizens, President Carter emerged and crossed over to Lafayette Park. He lit the large Hanukkah candelabrum, dubbed the “National Menorah,” that had been erected in the park with private funds and delivered brief remarks.
Every president since has recognized Hanukkah with a special menorah lighting ceremony or reception and limited his Christmas messages to those who actually observe the holiday.
Menorah lightings grew in prominence during the Clinton years. Memorably, in 1998 Clinton joined Israel’s then-President Ezer Weizman in lighting a candle on the first night of Hanukkah in Jerusalem.
But no White House Hanukkah parties ever took place under Clinton. Instead, he included Jewish leaders in a large annual “holiday party.”
Annual Hanukkah parties
The first president to host an official White House Hanukkah party, and the first to actually light a menorah in the White House residence and not just in its public spaces, was George W. Bush, beginning in both cases in 2001.
Bush made a point of inserting religion into his many annual Christmas parties. He sought to underscore through the Hanukkah party that the White House “belongs to people of all faiths.” Since then Hanukkah has become an official White House tradition.
Hasidic leaders in the distinctive black suits worn by members of their community regularly appeared at these parties. Beginning in 2005 the parties became completely kosher.
President Barack Obama at the annual Hanukkah reception in the White House in 2013.AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Barack Obama maintained the tradition of the White House Hanukkah party, holding two of them in 2013, and Donald Trump maintained the tradition as well. Both in 2018 and 2019, he also held two Hanukkah parties for his friends and Jewish family members – including his daughter, Ivanka – and invited selected non-Jewish guests to attend them. Last year, amid the pandemic, Trump again held two Hanukkah parties. He spoke at one of them and lamented the “stolen election” that he insisted he had won.
The fact that this year the White House is abandoning the Hanukkah reception altogether and returning to the tradition of the menorah lighting suggests a shift back to the religious aspects of Hanukkah.
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What is truly significant, however, is how much America has changed since Presidents John Adams and Calvin Coolidge invented America’s White House Christmas traditions and paid no attention to Hanukkah at all.
This is an updated version of an article first published on Dec. 4, 2020.
Jonathan D. Sarna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(12090) "The omicron variant possesses numerous mutations in the spike protein, the knob-like protrusions (in red) that allow the virus to invade other cells.Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
A new variant named omicron (B.1.1.529) was reported by researchers in South Africa on Nov. 24, 2021, and designated a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization two days later. Omicron is very unusual in that it is by far the most heavily mutated variant yet of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The omicron variant has 50 mutations overall, with 32 mutations on the spike protein alone. The spike protein – which forms protruding knobs on the outside of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – helps the virus adhere to cells so that it can gain entry. It is also the protein that all three vaccines currently available in the U.S. use to induce protective antibodies. For comparison, the delta variant has nine mutations. The larger number of mutations in the omicron variant may mean that it could be more transmissible and/or better at evading immune protection – a prospect that is very concerning.
I am a virologist who studies emerging and zoonotic viruses to better understand how new epidemic or pandemic viruses emerge. My research group has been studying various aspects of the COVID-19 virus, including its spillover into animals.
Why do new SARS-CoV-2 variants continue to emerge?
While the unusually high number of mutations in the omicron variant is surprising, the emergence of yet another SARS-CoV-2 variant is not unexpected.
Through natural selection, random mutations accumulate in any virus. This process is sped up in RNA viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. If and when a set of mutations provides a survival advantage to a variant over its predecessors, the variant will out-compete all other existing virus variants.
Does the omicron variant’s greater number of mutations mean it is more dangerous and transmissible than delta? We simply don’t know yet. The conditions that led to the emergence of the variant are not yet clear, but what is clear is that the shear number and configuration of mutations in omicron is unusual.
One possible explanation for how viral variants with multiple mutations emerge is through prolonged infection in a patient whose immune system is suppressed – a situation that can lead to rapid viral evolution. Researchers have hypothesized that some of the earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants, such as the alpha variant, may have stemmed from a persistently infected patient. However, the unusual constellation and numerous mutations in the omicron variant make it very different from all other SARS-CoV-2 strains, which raises questions about how it came about.
Another possible source of variants could be through animal hosts. The virus that causes COVID-19 can infect several animal species, including mink, tigers, lions, cats and dogs. In a study that is not yet peer-reviewed, an international team that I lead recently reported widespread infection by SARS-CoV-2 in free-living and captive white-tailed deer in the U.S. Therefore, we also cannot rule out the possibility that the omicron variant emerged in an animal host through rapid evolution.
Delta is between 40% and 60% more transmissible than the alpha variant and nearly twice as transmissible as the original SARS-CoV-2 virus first identified in China. The delta variant’s heightened transmissibility is the primary reason why researchers believe it was able to out-compete other variants to become the dominant strain.
A key factor in viral fitness is its replication rate – or how quickly a virus can make more copies of itself. The delta variant replicates faster than previous SARS-CoV-2 variants, and a not-yet-peer-reviewed study estimated that it produces 1,000 times more virus particles than its predecessors.
In addition, people infected with the delta variant are making and shedding more virus, which is another potential mechanism for its increased ability to spread. Research suggests that a possible explanation for the delta variant’s heightened ability to replicate is that mutations in the spike protein led to more efficient binding of the spike protein to its host, via the ACE-2 receptor.
Studies also show that people infected with the delta variant have a higher risk of being hospitalized compared to those infected with the original SARS-CoV-2 and early variants. One particular mutation on the spike protein of the delta variant – the P681R mutation – is thought to be a key contributor to its improved ability to enter cells and to cause more severe disease.
Will omicron replace delta?
It is too early to say if the omicron variant is fitter than delta or if it will become dominant. Omicron shares some mutations with the delta variant but also possesses others that are quite different. But one of the reasons why we in the research community are particularly concerned is that the omicron variant has 10 mutations in the receptor-binding domain – the part of the spike protein that interacts with the ACE-2 receptor and mediates entry into cells – compared with just two for the delta variant.
Suppose the combination of all the mutations in omicron makes it either more transmissible or better at immune evasion than delta. In that case, we could see the spread of this variant globally. However, it is also possible that the unusually high number of mutations could be detrimental to the virus and make it unstable.
It is highly likely that the omicron variant is not the endgame and that more SARS-CoV-2 variants will emerge. As SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread among humans, natural selection and adaptation will result in more variants that could plausibly be more transmissible than delta.
We know from influenza viruses that the process of viral adaptation never ends. Lower vaccination rates among many countries means that there are still a lot of susceptible hosts out there for the virus, and that it will continue to circulate and mutate as long as it can spread. The emergence of the omicron variant is yet another reminder of the urgency to vaccinate to stop the further spread and evolution of SARS-CoV-2.
Suresh V. Kuchipudi receives funding from the U.S National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S National Science Foundation.
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string(12438) "An even mix of proponents and opponents to teaching critical race theory attend a Placentia-Yorba Linda school board meeting in California.Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Since the final months of the Trump administration, the Republican Party has waged a sustained assault on critical race theory. Otherwise known as “CRT,” this academic framework offers tools to illuminate the relationship among race, racism and the law. Through calculated caricature and distortion, right-wing think tanks and media have weaponized CRT to manufacture a culture war that recasts antiracism as the new racism.
This campaign employs a well-worn script designed to sow racial division, galvanize voters and shield economic elites – and the systems they enable – from meaningful critique.
This campaign appears to be working. Anti-CRT messaging has emerged as a signature – and potent – GOP political talking point. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, for example, repeated a common refrain when she asserted the falsehood that “critical race theory teaches people to judge others based on race, gender, or sexual identity, rather than the content of their character.” More recently in Virginia, Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin closed his campaign with a pledge to “ban critical race theory on Day One.”
Pundits may have overstated CRT’s impact in Virginia and beyond. But Youngkin’s success cemented CRT as a favorite foil in the Republican playbook.
On the legislative front, between January and September 2021, Republicans invoked similar anti-CRT rhetoric to justify 54 bills across 24 states. At least 11 are now law.
The mainstream media keeps characterizing these laws as “CRT bans.” This framing is understandable and inviting. But often it distorts reality by mischaracterizing the laws themselves. Most of these bills – if you take seriously their actual text – call for more CRT, not less.
Banned concepts
Consider a bill recently passed by Wisconsin’s Republican-dominated Assembly. The bill, which tracks legislation across the country, prohibits teachers from “teach[ing]” a series of banned “concepts.” This includes a ban against teaching that “[o]ne race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.”
Now imagine a 10th grade social studies class begins a unit on corporate America. The teacher opens with basic facts about Fortune 500 CEOs: 92.6% are white, 1% are Black, 3.4% are Latinx and 2.4% are Asian. These disparities exist against a backdrop in which roughly 60% of the U.S. population is white, 14.2% is Black, 18.7% is Latinx and 7.2% is Asian.
The statistics invite an inescapable question: Why do such glaring disparities exist?
One answer assumes today’s CEOs are the product of fair and unbiased systems that reward talent and hard work. This response implies that white men, relative to everyone else, and white women, relative to women of color, are simply more talented and harder workers.
In effect, this story suggests that white men are inherently superior – the precise message that Wisconsin’s bill prohibits.
Explaining advantage
A different answer might explore whether the systems that produce CEOs are, in fact, fair and unbiased.
This is where CRT enters. Roughly 40 years ago, a group of legal scholars confronted a similar question: Why do profound racial disparities persist even when the law prohibits racial discrimination?
Four decades later, these scholars – who would name their project critical race theory – have offered varying answers. These answers, many grounded in seminal work from professor Derrick Bell, have exposed the myriad ways that race and sex remain powerful determinants in America – even when laws prohibit race or sex discrimination.
The teacher in our example could bring this robust literature into her classroom. Doing so would comply with the Wisconsin bill and, importantly, enrich her students’ learning. She could, for example, assign writings from acclaimed critical race theorist Cheryl Harris, who exposed the often-invisible benefits whiteness can confer, even to poor white people.
She could also turn to legal scholar Jerry Kang, who has outlined why implicit biases often lead individuals and institutions to discriminate – even when we hold earnest egalitarian commitments.
Though the specifics differ, the above scholars – and the collective CRT canon – offer a consistent insight: CEO white/male overrepresentation cannot be explained by some “inherent superiority” enjoyed by whites and men. Rather, contemporary disparities result, in large part, from race and gender – and often class – advantages and disadvantages embedded within the systems through which CEOs must pass.
CRT’s political reality
For educators like me who have witnessed the benefits of a CRT-rich curriculum, it’s welcome news that anti-CRT lawmakers are proposing and passing pro-CRT laws – even if unintentional and counterintuitive.
But in reality, these laws are unlikely to yield more CRT in classrooms – regardless of their actual language.
The GOP’s anti-CRT crusade, as with related campaigns targeting trans youth and mask mandates, has never been about facts – let alone concern for legal text. This is about power, and “anti-CRT” laws empower private and public actors to target teachers who engage in even basic conversations about race and racism.
A recent report from the free-speech advocacy group PEN America captures this dynamic. After reviewing all 54 bills, PEN concluded: “These bills appear designed to chill academic and educational discussions and impose government dictates on teaching and learning. In short: They are educational gag orders.”
PEN further explained that even when bills do not become law, they “send a potent message that educators are being watched and that ideological redlines exist.”
In today’s toxic political climate, this translates to less CRT in the classroom, even when the law – and sound teaching – demands more.
Record numbers of Americans have quit their jobs in recent months, with more than 4.4 million submitting their resignation in September alone. Millions more may be preparing to follow them to the exits – one survey found that around a third of workers wanted to make a career change.
But one of the things I learned over the years as a lawyer and later as a professor specializing in employment law is that timing and preparation matter when it comes to quitting a job. So even if you have another job lined up, it’s worth considering a few factors that might influence whether you quit now or stay in your current role for a few weeks – or months.
1. No unemployment insurance
In general, workers who quit are not eligible for unemployment insurance.
Instead, unemployment insurance is reserved for those who lost their job through no fault of their own, generally as a result of a layoff or other termination.
2. Two weeks’ notice not required
Employers often request that workers provide two weeks’ notice before they quit, but your employer cannotforce you to stay in a job you don’t want.
Almost all employment relationships in the United States are terminable at will, meaning the employee can be terminated – or can quit – at any time.
It also means that if you give your employer two weeks’ notice, they might choose to terminate your employment earlier, including immediately upon receiving your notice.
3. Check your vacation balance
If you are eligible for vacation or paid time off, it’s worth checking your vacation balance, as well as your company’s policy regarding vacation payout for workers who quit.
Some state laws require companies to pay out employees’ remaining vacation balance as part of their final paycheck. Other states allow companies to refuse to pay out remaining vacation.
If your company’s policy states that workers forfeit their remaining vacation balance upon termination, you may want to take any vacation days you’ve accumulated before you submit your notice.
4. Consider your need for leave
If you expect to need family or medical leave to take care of a newborn baby, recover from your own health condition or care for a sick family member, now may not be the best time to quit your job.
Although state law varies, you’ll be eligible to take leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act only if you have worked for a company for more than a year. The law also applies only to companies with more than 50 employees and workers who have logged at least 1,250 hours at the company in the past 12 months.
Although the leave is unpaid, it allows you to continue your benefits while not working and enables you to return to your job at the end of the period if you so choose.
5. Health care: Plan ahead
Quitting a job also means losing whatever health coverage you receive through your employment. Your termination paperwork should explain how long you will remain covered under the current plan – for example, the last day of the month that your employment ended.
If you have a new job lined up, you’ll want to ask them when you can expect to be covered under their plan. For any gaps in coverage, you can opt to continue under your old employer’s plan through a law called COBRA, but you’ll have to pay your old employer’s share of the premium, which can be pricey.
If you are lucky enough to be eligible for a bonus – such as an annual bonus if the company logs a successful year – you’ll want to check its terms and conditions.
It’s not unusual for companies to require workers to be employed on the date the bonus is paid to be eligible to receive the payment. If you happen to quit the week before, you may be out of luck, unless wage laws in your state protect that payment.
If you expect to receive a big bonus this year, you may want to stick around until that bonus check is in your bank account.
7. The final paycheck: Know your rights
State laws will generally impose rules requiring your employer to pay your final paycheck within a certain period after your final day of work. If you’re owed sales commission, there may be separate rules on when that needs to be paid.
State rules also prohibit your employer from making deductions from your paycheck without your permission – such as deductions for equipment or to recoup a signing bonus or relocation expenses. If your final paycheck doesn’t arrive within the legal time frame, or includes unauthorized deductions, you may want to consider hiring a lawyer.
8. Do not take anything from the office (without permission)
If your job involved working on a laptop or in an office, it might be tempting to plug a thumb drive into that computer and download some useful files for future reference – maybe some spreadsheets or a PowerPoint presentation you were especially proud of. Don’t.
Be careful not to take any company information when you leave a job.
All information that you had access to during your job, and even anything you produced while there, belongs to your employer. Downloading information onto a thumb drive is a great way to trigger an expensive lawsuit over whether you have stolen company trade secrets, especially if you are leaving to work for a competitor.
And yes, they will be able to tell that you plugged a thumb drive into the machine.
If you just need to download some personal files or a work sample for your future career, get permission from your boss or human resources to download or copy the files.
After all, departing a job in style isn’t just about sending a sarcastic email on your way out the door. It’s also about leaving with a bonus check in the bank and an empty vacation balance.
Elizabeth C. Tippett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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string(17125) "People wait at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa on Nov. 26, 2021, as many nations moved to stop air travel from the country. AP Photo/Jerome Delay
Omicron, the latest COVID-19 variant dubbed a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization, has prompted new travel restrictions in many nations. Although little is known about omicron, scientists have expressed concern that it may be more transmissible or vaccine-resistant than previous variants.
On Nov. 26, 2021, the United States joined a growing list of nations banning travelers from countries in southern Africa, where the variant was first identified. The U.S. decision followed another recent change, which went into effect on Nov. 8, 2021, requiring non-citizens entering the U.S. by plane to be fully vaccinated, with limited exceptions. Everyone entering by plane, including citizens, must provide a negative COVID-19 test.
As bioethicists based in the U.S. and Ghana, we explore the intersection of global health and ethics in our research. In the U.S. government’s recent rules for entry, we see far-reaching consequences that should prompt policymakers to consider not just science, but ethics.
Buying time?
There are multiple arguments to support travel rules imposing bans or requiring full vaccination. U.S. policy aims to “prevent further introduction, transmission, and spread of COVID-19 into and throughout the United States,” President Joe Biden said as he introduced the vaccination requirement. He noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “has determined that the best way to slow the spread of COVID-19, including preventing infection by the Delta variant, is for individuals to get vaccinated.”
Ethically, the reason to contain the spread is to protect health and save lives. It could be argued that a country’s first duty is to keep its own people safe. However, many countries manage to protect their people while building in flexibility, such as by testing and quarantining visitors in lieu of travel bans or strict vaccination requirements. France, for example, tailors requirements to infection rates. It considers the U.S. an “orange” country, meaning unvaccinated Americans must show negative COVID-19 tests and self-isolate for seven days.
One argument in favor of travel bans holds that they could slow the spread of the virus and buy time while scientists learn more. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease advisor, reportedly told the president it would take two weeks to have definitive answers about omicron. A travel ban gives scientists more time to assess how well existing vaccines fare against new variants, and to begin reformulating vaccines if needed.
An ethical argument for vaccine requirements is that people should be held accountable for their choices, including refusing vaccination. Yet throughout much of the world, particularly poorer regions, people cannot access vaccines. On average, only 6% of people in low-income countries have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, compared to 74% in rich countries.
Science in flux
Critics of travel bans and vaccine requirements point out that such controls are hardly foolproof. There is scant evidence that travel restrictions reduce disease spread, particularly if they are not timed right and paired with other prevention strategies. Meanwhile, many studies have highlighted the negative consequences of international travel restrictions, such as xenophobia and mental health concerns.
Banning travelers in response to omicron is intended to keep people safe. But bans could backfire if they are seen as punitive, and could make countries less likely to share information about new variants. After South Africa reported the omicron variant, its health minister said travel bans had made the country a scapegoat for a “worldwide problem,” while the foreign ministry claimed, “Excellent science should be applauded and not punished.” Targeting African countries with travel bans “attacks global solidarity,” the World Health Organization’s Africa director said in a statement.
Jolly Dave, right, makes a phone call after arriving from India and being reunited with her boyfriend, Nirmit Shelat, at Newark Liberty International Airport, Nov. 8, 2021. The couple has not been able to see one another for nine months due to pandemic travel restrictions.AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Health and justice
Travel bans and vaccine rules also raise equity concerns, given the dramatic disparity in vaccination rates across the globe. Travel restrictions disproportionately impact people from low-income nations where few vaccines are available.
It might appear that requiring vaccination for entry would not leave many people worse off, if people in poorer countries can rarely afford travel. Yet many people traveling to wealthier countries do so for jobs. Pre-pandemic, in 2019, the U.S. issued more than 900,000 work-eligible visas.
Many opponents of travel restrictions emphasize that new variants are not surprising, given how unequally vaccines have been distributed around the globe. When nations in southern Africa protested the new travel ban, they pointed to previous warnings that the delay in rolling out vaccinations there would increase the risk of new variants.
Equity concerns are intensified by wealthy nations’ partial responsibility for poorer nations’ difficulty accessing vaccines. Early in the pandemic, rich countries struck advance market agreements and secured as much as 500% of their predicted vaccine need, exacerbating global vaccine scarcity and bidding up prices.
Wealthy nations pledged 1.8 billion doses of vaccine to low-income nations through COVAX, a global initiative to equitably distribute vaccines. Yet only 14% of them have been delivered according to The People’s Vaccine, an alliance calling for equal access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Some ethicists have argued that governments should hold off on vaccination requirements for international travelers until there is more universal access to vaccines, or allow alternatives, such as testing or vaccination upon arrival. The U.S. vaccine requirement for visitors does make humanitarian exceptions for travelers from countries where fewer than 10% of people are fully vaccinated. Still, it bars entry to people on a tourist or business visa, and citizens of many low- and middle-income nations where vaccination rates are low, but just above the bar.
Do as I say, not as I do?
The U.S. vaccination requirement also sounds hypocritical, because it does not apply to Americans. Unvaccinated citizens are allowed to reenter the country with a negative test result. Though free COVID-19 vaccines are widely available, just 58% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated.
In addition, U.S. rules exclude unvaccinated foreigners from countries with far lower COVID-19 rates. The U.S. has about 210 confirmed cases per million people, but excludes unvaccinated people from countries including India (6 per million), Paraguay (8 per million), Cambodia (2 per million) and Zimbabwe (3 per million), although lack of testing may contribute to low case counts.
Ultimately, the best way for wealthy nations to protect their own citizens is to vaccinate people across the globe. “If the variant shows up anywhere in the world, you can pretty much count on it being everywhere in the world,” as infectious disease specialist Michael Osterholm told the New York Times. Vaccinating more people reduces the chance of new variants appearing that are impervious to vaccines.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
People have recognized the power of storytelling for thousands of years. The Bible relies on parables like the prodigal son because stories successfully convey the underlying message in a memorable way that’s easy to pass along to future generations.
But when public health leaders and medical professionals need to communicate crucial, potentially life-saving health information, they can fail to harness the strength of storytelling.
That’s why we, a filmmaking professor, a health communications scholar and a public health professor specializing in community outreach, wanted to see if we could help once COVID-19 vaccines became widely available. We stepped up after seeing that the vaccination rates of Latino and Black residents of Los Angeles were roughly 20 percentage points lower than for white Angelenos. By May 1, 2021, 60% of white Angelenos had received at least one dose of the vaccine, compared to 42% for Latinos and 36% for Black residents.
Health care workers set up a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at a community event in a predominately Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles in August 2021.Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images
6 key points
We assembled two separate film crews, comprised of Latino and Black cinematic arts graduate students attending the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, to make two short films to counter vaccine hesitancy in both communities. The crews wrote scripts countering the most prevalent COVID-19 myths and then went into production on real locations in Los Angeles.
We worked on this project with VaccinateLA, a joint effort between the University of Southern California, multiple hospitals and dozens of community organizations.
The Latino crew’s 6-minute film, “Of Reasons and Rumors,” relays the story of a tight-knit Latino family in East LA divided by disagreement over the importance and safety of vaccination against COVID-19. Through the characters, viewers confront what they would do if being unvaccinated kept them away from their loved ones. We also produced another version of this film in Spanish.
In the short film ‘Of Reasons and Rumors,’ members of a Latino family discuss their concerns about the importance and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
The Black crew’s 6-minute film, “Happy Birthday, Granny,” revolves around an African American family in South LA. The family is celebrating their grandmother’s 80th birthday when an argument leads to a volatile discussion about the truth about the development and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
During the short film ‘Happy Birthday, Granny,’ an African American family argument leads to a myth-busting discussion about COVID-19 vaccine safety.
Research about narrative-driven films that are made to motivate behavioral changes, known as entertainment-education communication theory, suggests that facts inform while stories transform. We believed that making these stories effective would rely on two things.
First, the narrative needed to be sufficiently engaging to transport viewers into the narrative world so that they don’t notice, and possibly argue against, the vaccine-related information being conveyed. Second, it was important to use characters with whom viewers can identify. That’s why the casts for both films didn’t include any celebrities.
The films, completed in July 2021, make the following six key points:
We wanted to know whether these films would resonate elsewhere. Before distributing the films more broadly, we first showed them to a national sample of 600 unvaccinated Latinos and African Americans who took part in a forthcoming online study. Some watched films that featured characters of their own ethnicity, and others saw the film featuring the other ethnicity.
Although viewers who saw an ethnically matched film identified more with the characters and showed the greatest increase in their intent to get vaccinated in the next 30 days, viewers of either film could correctly reject the six myths both films seek to debunk.
Based on our results, we believe that both films could also help persuade Black and Latino people outside Los Angeles who haven’t yet gotten vaccinated against COVID-19 to do that.
We are following up with a third film, depicting a multiethnic community. It will encourage parents to have their children vaccinated. Early surveys indicate that many parents are reluctant to take this important step, even as shots for kids 5 and up are being rolled out.
Ashley Phelps, a University of Southern California doctoral candidate researching vaccine hesitancy, coordinated the COVID-19 protocols for the filmmaking.
Jeremy Kagan participated pro bono as the filmmaker on projects mentioned in this article that have been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the VaccinateLA partnership.
Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati received funds from the W.M. Keck Foundation at the Keck School of Medicine of USC as Co-Director and Co-PI with Michele Kipke of VaccinateLA. She also received funds from the National Alliance for Hispanic Health through a grant from the Health Research Services Administration (HRSA) for her COVID-19 work.
Sheila Murphy has received funding from the National Institutes of Health for her work on narrative persuasion and the VaccinateLA partnership.
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string(16332) "Women who are collectively donating to an all-girls school in Peru discuss their charitable giving in a Vienna, Virginia dining room.Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The American poet Ambrose Bierce wrote in 1906 that a philanthropist is “a rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.”
While this satirical description may have resonated at the time, it no longer rings true today – in terms of the physical description if not the metaphorical critique. Major donors, people who give away massive sums of money, are becoming more diverse. More are women and 50 years old or younger.
Gender differences in giving are especially notable among single women and single men. Holding factors like income and wealth constant, about 51% of single women indicated they would give to charity, compared with 41% of single men. Women are also more likely than men to give to charity as their income rises.
Married women of means are also among today’s most prominent philanthropists.
It’s become more common and increasingly visible among the world’s richest couples for women to be equal partners in decisions about charitable giving and to champion causes of their own, like gender equality and criminal justice reform. Prominent examples include Melinda Gates, who is married to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Laura Arnold, the wife of hedge fund investor John Arnold.
Some women who are married to billionaires appear to be taking the lead on the couple’s philanthropy. Examples include Cari Tuna, a former Wall Street Journal reporter married to Dustin Moscowitz, co-founder of Facebook and Asana, and Mellody Hobson, the businesswoman who chairs the Starbucks board of directors and is married to “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas.
Businesswoman Mellody Hobson, married to filmmaker George Lucas, has taken a leading role in the couple’s philanthropy.Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
How women give
Of course, no one needs to be wealthy to be charitable.
And women, whether they’re rich, poor or somewhere in between, are perhaps more likely than men to think about giving in broad terms, participating in a variety of charitable activities.
During crises and otherwise women seem especially likely to give by volunteering their time and talents, in addition to donating money to support causes they care about. Women are also likely to contribute in other ways, such as providing their own testimony by engaging in advocacy and leveraging their social networks on behalf of these causes.
For instance, mutual aid societies, which were originally established in Black communities in the 1700s, have reemerged to help individuals care for one another.
Interestingly, our colleagues at the Women’s Philanthropy Institute found in reviewing data from 2016 to 2019 that women give far more money online than men.
In particular, the researchers found that women gave about two-thirds of the money raised through the annual Giving Tuesday charity campaign, which happens on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
Women everywhere are generous
There are many examples of affluent women giving generously elsewhere in the world too.
In China, the landscaping entrepreneur He Qiaonü pledged
.5 billion for biodiversity conservation in 2017. That marked the biggest donation ever made for an environmental cause in any country at that point.
Liliane Bettencourt, who inherited the L’Oréal cosmetics and hair care fortune, established the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, France’s largest foundation. It primarily supports life sciences and the arts through prestigious prizes.
Japan’s first self-made woman billionaire, Yoshiko Shinohara, recently retired to concentrate on philanthropy by funding scholarships for aspiring nurses, social workers or day care staff.
Tessa Skidmore is employed by the Women's Philanthropy Institute, which receives funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She also serves as Vice President of the Indiana Evaluation Association.
Charles Sellen has received funding from Indiana University and from the Franco-American Fulbright Commission to conduct research on philanthropy. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
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string(19224) "People wade through high water to evacuate a flooded home in LaPlace, La., after Hurricane Ida struck.Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2021, 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city. This time the levees held. Billions of dollars invested in reinforcing them had paid off – at least for part of the population.
A strong similarity between Ida and Katrina still emerged: Low-income communities and communities of color remain at high risk from hurricanes.
As scholars who study refugeesand migration worldwide, we are finding that the communities most at risk are being pushed into permanent displacement and homelessness, or deeper into poverty, with each climate-related disaster. Much of this could be prevented if the U.S. government invested in preparedness and did more to protect vulnerable communities.
‘Hunker down’
Despite years of preparations, New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said there was no time to issue a mandatory evacuation order as Ida rapidly intensified into a powerful Category 4 hurricane. She urged city residents to “hunker down.” Mass evacuations require coordination among multiple parishes and states, and there wasn’t enough time. In several surrounding parishes, people were told to evacuate, but in low-lying and flood-prone locations, many residents couldn’t afford to leave.
While many New Orleans residents breathed a sigh of relief as Ida’s storm surge subsided, the damage outside the city’s levee system was devastating.
In St. John Parish, about 30 miles northwest of New Orleans, Ida’s storm surge flooded the largest town, LaPlace, whose residents have faced many natural disasters over the years. Most LaPlace residents couldn’t afford to evacuate. When the storm hit, people pleaded for boat rescues. Two months later, residents were still waiting for repairs, and some were contemplating leaving permanently.
Native communities living in the bayous of coastal Louisiana are also facing the risk of permanent displacement. One example is the Houma people, who saw many of their homes damaged or destroyed. The Houma have been recognized by the state as a tribe since 1972 but are not recognized by the federal government and thus are not eligible for federal community assistance. Instead, members apply for assistance as private citizens. Many were left without housing, and their displacement erodes the Houma’s sense of community and connection to their land.
In many parts of the U.S., the legacy of segregation means that low-income communities are more likely to live in high-risk areas. When Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston in 2017, for example, low-income neighborhoods were most affected. According to the Greater Houston Flood Mitigation Consortium, a quarter of affordable, multifamily housing lies within a currently mapped floodplain and is vulnerable to future flooding.
As disasters become more frequent in a warming climate, low-income people without adequate assistance in flood- and hurricane-prone areas are likely to be permanently displaced, as it will be too costly to try to rebuild.
Agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Housing and Urban Development all respond to climate-related emergencies. But the absence of any central coordinating agency means the government’s response tends to be disorganized and can even contribute to deepening inequalities.
FEMA, the main source of post-disaster funding, focuses primarily on recovery and reconstruction of property, which favors homeowners and wealthier individuals. The aid is allocated based on cost-benefit calculations designed to minimize taxpayer risk.
When property values are higher, FEMA’s payments for damages are higher, making it easier for wealthier neighborhoods to rebuild. As a result, the majority of the funds are not given to those who need them most but rather to those whose property is worth more.
Low-income communities along the Louisiana coast were hit hardest by Hurricane Ida.Brandon Bell/Getty Images
People with more resources can also apply more easily for aid, whereas the application process can be too complicated and demanding for those without access to up-to-date information and internet service.
FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program provides financial assistance to those who are uninsured, but the program cannot pay for all disaster-related losses. Federal assistance comes either as a loan or as a FEMA grant of about US$5,000 per household. But the average flood insurance claim in 2018 exceeded $40,000, according to FEMA.
The National Flood Insurance Program helps those who can afford the insurance. But those who are uninsured aren’t able to recover their losses. Disaster cycles ensue in which those who are most at risk cannot access funding either to prepare for disasters or to recover from them.
For example, in cases of urban flooding, families who own homes can get up to $30,000 in FEMA grants for rebuilding and recovery. If they have higher incomes, they can also benefit from a tax refund. Wealthier individuals are also more likely to apply for Small Business Administration low-interest disaster loans.
In contrast, low-income families who are uninsured or who rent a home often receive smaller grants from FEMA and do not qualify for significant tax refunds or SBA loans due to low credit scores.
Federal disaster aid focuses on rebuilding damaged homes, including in high-risk locations.Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Additionally, richer individuals and families often receive help from their employers and have more flexibility in terms of taking time off to recover and take care of their families. Low-income families generally do not have the luxury to step away from their jobs, and many even lose them as a result of climate-related disaster and business closures.
This means that those with wealth and high incomes experience a very different recovery process than those with fewer possessions and lower income. Climate disasters can drive less-privileged people and people who don’t own property into debt as they become displaced, lose their jobs and must pay higher housing and rent prices due to reduced housing availability.
How government could help
Social scientists have been saying for decades that natural disasters exacerbate inequalities. New Orleans and Houston are just two examples of the inadequacy of short-term emergency responses.
The U.S. government can minimize the risks and the impact of displacement by planning and preparing for both slow- and rapid-onset events.
It can move from a disaster response that is focused on recovering property to one focused on protecting those most at risk. The federal government is starting to make some moves in this direction. In September 2021, it expanded the forms of assistance offered. It also expanded the types of home ownership and occupancy documents it accepts, a change meant to help those in homes passed down through generations who lack clear ownership documents. These changes now need to be publicized as part of a wider government strategy to increase protection for low-income residents.
Ideally, the government could set up an agency focused on climate-related migration and displacement to research how at-risk areas will be affected and work with residents to find solutions. In our experience, the most effective agencies are those that work closely with local communities.
Strengthening protection in at-risk areas and supporting low-income communities recovering from disasters can help reduce economic and political polarization, population loss and economic decline, and boost protection for all.
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
Large shares of grants that donor-advised funds distributed from 2014 to 2018 supported educational and religious nonprofits. That’s what we found in one of the first studies of its kind regarding the financial accounts often called DAFs. People with donor-advised funds use them to give money to the charities of their choice when they are ready to do so.
Some 29% of total DAF grant dollars funded education-focused nonprofits, and 14% supported churches and other religious organizations during this period within our sample, we found.
Grants from DAFs also supported giving to arts and culture organizations and public-society benefit organizations, such as the United Way and civil rights groups, at higher levels compared with the overall picture. Giving to arts and culture represented roughly 9% of the total grant dollars from DAFs from 2014 to 2018, and giving to public-society benefit organizations claimed 13% of the total.
This data is part of a Giving USA Special Report on donor-advised funds. We conducted our analysis in partnership with the Giving USA Foundation, classifying 3 million grants from 87 different DAF-sponsoring organizations. As two of the leadresearchers, we obtained the data from the Internal Revenue Service and the organizations and charitable arms of financial institutions that manage DAFs.
This data encompasses 70% of all DAF grant dollars from 2014 to 2018.
Why it matters
Money distributed by donor-advised funds represented an estimated 7% of all charitable giving in 2020 – a percentage that appears to be growing over time. And yet very little research exists to explain where this money went.
We believe this study to be the most detailed and comprehensive look at where DAF grant dollars are going to date. It is more comprehensive than our prior study that looked at data regarding donor-advised fund grants distributed from 2012 to 2015.
What’s next
We are doing additional research based on data from DAF grants for 2020. The information available so far indicates that priorities for these donors changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. DAF grants to human services nonprofits, such as food banks and homeless shelters, grew strongly in that year for the subset of organizations we studied.
In addition, we are finding that grants from donor-advised funds in our sample to historically Black colleges and universities and racial justice organizations more than quadrupled from 2019 to 2020, growth that is consistent with an overall trend in philanthropy. As final 2020 IRS data is released, and in the years ahead, we will continue to track what DAFs are funding – and how those trends may be shifting.
Anna Pruitt received funding from the Giving USA Foundation for this project, which in turn received funding from a variety of sources, including donor-advised fund sponsoring organizations.
Jon Bergdoll received funding from the Giving USA Foundation for this project, which in turn received funding from a variety of sources, including donor-advised fund sponsoring organizations.
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string(10472) "A Jewish woman lights a candle for the festival of Hanukkah at the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem.Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images
The eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah commemorates ancient Jews’ victory over the powerful Seleucid empire, which ruled much of the Middle East from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.
On the surface, it’s a story of male heroism. A ragtag rebel force led by a rural priest and his five sons, called the Maccabees, freed the Jews from oppressive rulers. Hanukkah, which means “rededication” in Hebrew, celebrates the Maccabees’ victory, which allowed the Jews to rededicate their temple in Jerusalem, the center of ancient Jewish worship.
But as a professor of Jewish history, I believe that seeing Hanukkah this way misses the inspiring women who were prominent in the earliest tellings of the story.
The bravery of a young widow named Judith is at the heart of an ancient book that bears her name. The heroism of a second woman, an unnamed mother of seven sons, appears in a book known as 2 Maccabees.
Saving Jerusalem
These books are not included in the Hebrew scriptures, but appear in other collections of religious texts known as the Septuagint and the Apocrypha.
According to these texts, Judith was a young Israelite widow in a town called Bethulia, strategically situated on a mountain pass into Jerusalem. To besiege Jerusalem, the Seleucid army first needed to capture Bethulia.
Facing such a formidable enemy, the townsfolk were terrified. Unless God immediately intervened, they decided, they would simply surrender. Enslavement was preferable to certain death.
But Judith scolded the local leaders for testing God, and was brave enough to take matters into her own hands. Removing her widow’s clothing, she entered the enemy camp. She beguiled the Seleucid general, Holofernes, with her beauty, and promised to give her people over to him. Hoping to seduce her, Holofernes prepared a feast. By the time his entourage left him alone with Judith, he was drunk and asleep.
Now she carried out her plan: cutting off his head and escaping back to Bethulia. The following morning, the discovery of Holofernes’ headless body left the Seleucid army trembling with fear. Soldiers fled by every available path as Bethulia’s Jews, recovering their courage, rushed in and slaughtered them. Judith’s bravery saved her town and, with it, Jerusalem.
The book of 2 Maccabees, Chapter 7, meanwhile, relates the story of an unnamed Jewish mother and her seven sons, who were seized by the Seleucids.
Emperor Antiochus commanded that they eat pork, which is forbidden by the Torah, to show their obedience to him. One at a time, the sons refused. An enraged Antiochus subjected them to unspeakable torture. Each son withstood the ordeal and is portrayed as a model of bravery. Resurrection awaits those who die in the service of God, they proclaimed, while for Antiochus and his followers, only death and divine punishment lay ahead.
Throughout these ordeals, their mother encouraged her sons to accept their suffering. “She reinforced her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage,” as 2 Maccabees relates, and admonished her sons to remember their coming reward from God.
Having killed the first six brothers, Antiochus promised the youngest a fortune if only he would reject his faith. His mother told the boy, “Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers.” The story in 2 Maccabees ends with the simple statement that, after her sons’ deaths, the mother also died.
Later retellings give the mother a name. Most commonly, she is called Hannah, based on a detail in the biblical book of 1 Samuel. In this section, called the “prayer of Hannah,” the prophet Samuel’s mother refers to herself as having borne seven children.
Working with God
Jewish educator and author Erica Brown has emphasized a lesson we should learn from the story of Judith, one that emerges from 2 Maccabees as well. “Just like the Hanukkah story generally, the message of these texts is that it’s not always the likely candidates who save the day,” she writes. “Sometimes salvation comes when you least expect it, from those who are least likely to deliver it.”
Three hundred years after the Maccabean revolt, Judaism’s earliest rabbis stressed a similar message. Adding a new focus to Hanukkah, they spoke of a divine miracle that occurred when the ancient Jews took back the Temple and wanted to relight the holy “eternal flame” inside. They found just one small vessel of oil, sufficient to light the flame for only one day – but it lasted eight days, giving them time to produce a new supply.
As the influential rabbi David Hartman pointed out, the Hanukkah story celebrates “our people’s strength to live without guarantees of success.” Some ordinary person, he points out, took the initiative to rekindle the eternal flame, despite how futile doing so may have seemed.
Ever since, Judaism has increasingly focused on the interaction of the human and the divine. The Hanukkah story teaches listeners that they all must play a part to repair a hurting world. Not everyone needs to be a Judith or Hannah; but, like them, we humans can’t wait for God to take care of it.
In synagogues, one of the readings for the week during Hanukkah is from the prophet Zechariah, who proclaimed, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” These words succinctly capture the meaning of Hanukkah and express what Jews might think about while lighting the Hanukkah candles: our responsibility to act in the spirit of God to create the miracles the world needs to become a place of beauty, equity and freedom.
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Alan Avery-Peck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
