Happy Hanukkah.

Just a reminder that a 2,176 year old tradition begins anew tonight. So tonight in honor of all Jews living and passed who have helped to light up the world we live in, I light my menorah. I don’t light it out of a profound belief in the miracle of the Maccabees, for I don’t believe in miracles. Nor do light it out of any family tradition, for I was raised Roman Catholic. I light it in honor of the millions of Jewish families who should be lighting their own menorahs tonight; the millions of “missing families” who don’t even exist today because the men and women who would have been their parents and grandparents were slaughtered in the Holocaust. Slaughtered not because of anything they had done, but merely because of who they were.

Hanukkah means "to dedicate."  It’s not a major Jewish holiday, but it is the most well known Jewish holiday to non-Jews, so I think it’s a good time for us non-Jews to dedicate ourselves to remembering the Holocaust; a good time for the world to dedicate itself to never letting such genocide happen again. Religion aside, respecting and protecting all people is just the right thing to do, so for the next eight nights I will light the menorah for those who never had the chance. Happy Hanukkah.