A small flame was lit on the Temple Mount today, and the response was immediate. According to eyewitnesses, Jewish visitors reported that a Hanukkah candle was kindled at the site under heavy security, an act framed by those present as a declaration that Jewish light cannot be extinguished, regardless of police pressure or the presence of the Islamic Waqf. One message circulated rapidly in Hebrew: “A candle was lit on the Temple Mount today. A thousand police officers and Waqf officials will not succeed in putting it out.”
The report followed another incident the previous day, on the eighth candle of Hanukkah. Activists stated that police removed a Jewish man from the Temple Mount while he was wrapped in a tallit (prayer shawl) and wearing tefillin (phylacteries), carrying a hanukkiyah (Hanukkah menorah). The Hebrew account described the scene bluntly: “Yesterday, the eighth candle of Hanukkah, police removed from the Temple Mount a Jew wrapped in a tallit and tefillin with a hanukkiyah. This is yet another unacceptable and illegal behavior by the police directed against Jewish ascenders to the Mount. The new district commander has much to fix in the conduct of the police on the Mount.”
The Temple Mount is administered day to day by the Islamic Waqf, with Israeli police enforcing security and restrictions that sharply limit Jewish prayer and ritual. While public menorah lightings are ordinary across Israel during Hanukkah, Jewish ritual acts on the Mount remain highly restricted, even when performed quietly and without disruption.
The Sages taught that the miracle of Hanukkah was not only the oil that burned beyond expectation, but the refusal to surrender Jewish service to foreign control. Lighting a candle on the Temple Mount places that teaching back into its original geography. It is not protest theater, and it is not symbolism detached from reality. It is a concrete act rooted in the Bible’s insistence that God’s presence is revealed through obedience, not intimidation.
The police actions described by witnesses are now being openly criticized, particularly in light of a newly appointed district commander responsible for the area. The claim that such removals are illegal reflects a growing insistence among Jewish visitors that basic rights are being denied at Judaism’s holiest site, even during a festival that centers on publicizing a miracle.
Hanukkah commemorates the rejection of the enforced erasure of Jewish worship. A single candle lit on the Temple Mount asserts that this rejection is not a relic of the past. The flame itself may be small, but its meaning is direct and unambiguous. It declares that Jewish light belongs at the heart of Jerusalem, and that no show of force can extinguish it.
