{"id":63975,"date":"2025-12-18T03:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/63975\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T03:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:58:07","slug":"hanukkah-event-in-waverly-reflects-on-hope-after-australia-shooting-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/63975\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanukkah event in Waverly reflects on hope after Australia shooting tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of global conflicts and a tragic Hanukkah celebration shooting in Australia, the Jewish Discovery Center in Waverly emphasizes hope and resilience.<\/p>\n<p>WAVERLY, Pa. \u2014 Hanukkah, the eight holiest days in Judaism, eight days centered on hope and light, centered on community during hard times.<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi Benny Rapoport, Jewish Discovery Center co-director, says, &#8220;There&#8217;s a powerful message here, especially in a time when there&#8217;s so much hate, so much violence. The message is, the way we combat evil is by lighting a candle, and that means doing good, adding in light, adding in goodness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A powerful message is needed for some at the Jewish Discovery Center in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnep.com\/section\/lackawanna-county\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Waverly<\/a>. Just days ago, a Hanukkah celebration in Australia was the target of a mass shooting that left 15 people dead and dozens more injured.<\/p>\n<p>Susan Levin of South Abington Township says, &#8220;There&#8217;s shifts globally, there&#8217;s so much division, but that is a devastation, a tragedy of loss of human beings during a time of celebration.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bruce Gevanthor of Scranton says, &#8220;Brings you to tears, absolute tears that people would be out celebrating such a happy event, and people had planned very well and strategically how to go and just start shooting them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With the mass shooting in Australia and the conflict between Israel and Hamas, folks invited a former Israeli hostage to speak about her experiences in captivity.<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi Benny Rapoport, Jewish Discovery Center co-director says, &#8220;The blessings of the menorah are all about the miracles in those days this time of year, to have somebody who is a walking miracle, who literally went and was taken hostage and was released miraculously with her daughter just a few weeks later is a miracle we can look at and we can think about and it can help us think what our lives are like.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the wake of global conflicts and a tragic Hanukkah celebration shooting in Australia, the Jewish Discovery Center&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-63975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-scranton","9":"tag-scranton-headlines","10":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}