Chanukah's Women: Facing Violence

Come commemorate the 5th Night of Chanukah and the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence 2021.

We will be lighting the candles and hearing from survivors of different types of violence.

• Alla Melman – resistance in time of war
• Aliza Levi– on coercive control
• Rachel Tanny – surviving domestic violence

Chanukah is a festival when Jews celebrate surviving by overcoming the odds, where the few repel the many, where the powerful retreat in the face of great determination. We light candles to represent the rededication of the Temple, which was violated and made unclean as a strategy of domination.

For many women who face violence, survival is at stake. We know that for many women the home, once believed to be a sanctuary, is the most dangerous of places. We also know that women are at danger at work, even when work is in a hallowed place like parliament. Women are in danger in the streets during times of peace and even more so during times of war. Women are blamed and shamed and we have had enough of this.

This Chanukah we will hear from and about women who have faced violence and we will light candles to shine light on their experience. We will use Chanukah to rededicate ourselves to the task of confronting violence against women wherever is occurs.