A recent find in Gaza sends chills up one’s spine.

Chanukah this year starts with candle lighting Sunday night. Like clockwork, the Antiquities Authority or the City of David announces just before the holiday each year some archaeological find related to the period of Chanukah. We have found coins with the image of the Greek-Syrian leader Antiochus! We have found oil lamps with images of the menorah from the Temple on them! This year did not disappoint: the City of David described a wall from the Hasmonean period that would have seen the war between the Maccabees and the Greek-Syrians, and the miracle of the olive oil.

While the new wall seems impressive, a different find recently described has had a much greater impact. The announcement was made by the IDF and included a very short video of six hostages who were murdered in cold blood by Hamas terrorists just prior to the arrival of Israeli soldiers to their position. They had been starved and kept in the dark for months. The video shows the hostages, and in part, they are lighting—in Hamas tunnels—Chanukah candles. They have a very hard time getting a lighter to light a candle, but they say the blessings and together sing the most famous song of the holiday. They had been ripped from the Nova music festival. Some of them, like American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, had been seriously injured. They had all suffered the deprivations of Hamas. When Eden Yerushalmi’s body was recovered, she weighed just 79 pounds. Yet, even in the darkness of the tunnels and the darkness of a 7th-century barbarian terror group, they found the strength to light Chanukah candles—and sing! We light our menorahs comfortably outdoors or on our dining room tables. We eat traditional potato pancakes or sufganiyot (donuts). What we take for granted, they did with faith and in the face of........

© Townhall