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Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, United States Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, observed the beginning of the Hanukkah festival on Thursday.
Notably, Hanukkah is celebrated around the same time as Christmas; it has nothing to do with the festival. Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem and the miracle of one day's worth of oil lasting for eight days after the Syrian Greeks defiled the Jerusalem Temple before the Maccabees, a group of Jewish soldiers, defeated them. "Tonight, we proudly light our menorahs and let them shine out our front windows as a reminder that even in darkness, we can bring forth the light," Emhoff wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday. "From our family to yours, happy Hanukkah!" A picture of the two lighting the menorah's first candle was posted on the post. Earlier on Thursday, Emhoff was present at the National Menorah lighting ceremony on the Ellipse, which is close to the White House. The presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were criticised by Emhoff during the event for what he called their "unacceptable" lack of moral clarity after they refused to state whether or not a call for the genocide of Jews would be considered harassment in accordance with their respective campus policies, The Hill reported. With the October 7 surprise attack by Hamas on Israel that claimed 1,200 Israeli lives, the White House has been addressing the surge in both Islamophobia and antisemitism. (ANI)
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