Military Chanukah Round-up

Here are some additional military Chanukah stories from around the globe:

A Hanukkah Hope: Chabad Lubavitch of the Pacific Northwest helps Jews on the USS Ford light a 9-foot menorah on the deck of the ship.

The USS Ford, a guided-missile frigate, may be a high-tech “total warfare system,” but for the past few days, it has been host to a symbol more than 2,000 years old: a menorah.

The Special Hanukkah Lights That Glow Still: This is a general article about Chanukah celebrations, but it starts off with the focus on LTC Susan Meisner.

How different this Hanukkah will be from a year ago for Susan Meisner. As it begins tonight, she, her husband and 5-year-old child will be at home in Alexandria to light the first candle on their menorah. A year ago, Meisner was half a world away, dressed in fatigues in the crowded quarters of the U.S. military’s Kabul compound and saying a prayer with uniformed and civilian strangers.

Chanukah Chabad Style at Camp Victory: This is a little more in-depth description of the Chanukah celebration at Camp Victory that Rabbi Schranz wrote about.

…there’s still something surreal about the idea of a grand Chanukah celebration at Saddam Hussein’s palace. Yet that’s precisely what happened on the first night of Chanukah, when 70 troops celebrated around a 12-foot menorah in the palace. We are celebrating the Festival of Lights in a place once occupied by a man who chose to extinguish light, Lt. JG Laurie Zimmet told her comrades as she spoke to them about the meaning of the Jewish holiday.

Jewish community gathers to light Mildenhall menorah: Yet another giant menorah in Mildenhall, England.

Set amid a series of Christmas decorations on an open lawn on the base, the ceremony was somewhat indicative of the Jewish community’s activities at Air Force bases in the United Kingdom and, for the most part, among U.S. forces overseas. It was small and intimate, and cobbled together from the mix of food and donated traditional items associated with the faith.