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December 18, 2025 | Third Thursday Thoughts
Dawn LaRochelle, Executive Director

“A candle is a small thing. But one candle can light another. And see how its own light increases, as a candle gives its flame to the other. You are such a light.”
— Moshe Davis

Under skills (mad skills!) that aren’t on my CV: I can source items people assure me don’t exist. Fresh cranberries in Taiwan? Check. A replacement Naval Academy Class of 1982 ring for my ex? Check. A customizable file cabinet with antique maps on the file drawers? Check.

But even my bloodhound-like ability to sniff out the impossible-to-find was not enough to locate a menorah in Tokyo, Japan in 1991.

It was the beginning of my two-year Rotary Japan Scholarship. I was one of fifteen scholars from around the world selected not only to pursue an intensive course of study at the university level (I was researching female voices in Japanese literature), but also to help foster international peace and understanding. Which, of course, I interpreted as sharing my Jewish heritage and throwing dinner parties. Some things never change.

That December, I invited a gaggle of Japanese friends to my tiny basement apartment to celebrate Chanukah with me and my brother-from-another-mother and fellow Rotary Scholar, Brian Landberg. The space was barely big enough for the folding table, let alone a crowd. Potatoes were stacked on the counter. Oil waited in a squat metal tin. I had somehow managed to track down sour cream and applesauce, victories unto themselves.

But Chanukah without a menorah isn’t Chanukah.

“What am I going to do?” I wailed to Brian after weeks of sleuthing and store-scouring led nowhere.

“You’re going to lean on your friend,” he said calmly.

Brian was an engineering student, possessed of an engineer’s methodical approach to crises and an engineer’s resourcefulness. Within the hour, he had crafted a handmade menorah using a glass Coke bottle rescued from my recycling bin and a wire hanger liberated from my closet. Balanced, elegant, improbable. It was a work of art.

My Japanese friends arrived at sundown. We recited the blessings. We sang a spirited rendition of Maoz Tzur, using a Japanese transliteration of the Hebrew words I had typed up for them. I taught them how to fry latkes; they taught me that chopsticks worked better than a spatula for turning them.

It remains one of my favorite memories ever.

I return to that night often, especially now.

What I remember most isn’t the makeshift menorah or even the unexpected choreography of latkes and chopsticks. It’s the lesson I didn’t yet have language for: Bridge-building doesn’t require perfection or polish. It requires showing up, for one another and for the moments that ask something of us.

That lesson has stayed with me for more than three decades. It shapes how I move through the world, and it shapes how I lead the Maine Jewish Museum.

This Chanukah season has been a heavy one. The antisemitic terrorist attack in Bondi Beach — Jews deliberately targeted and murdered while celebrating Chanukah — reverberated far beyond Sydney. Many of you felt it here in Maine, in ways both personal and unsettling. Many of you read about it in local coverage, including the Portland Press Herald, which turned to the Maine Jewish Museum for perspective during this painful time.

But on the first night of Chanukah, even as we were reeling from the shattering news from Australia, even as the snow fell and the cold bit, we gathered in the Museum garden for our inaugural public menorah lighting. People came anyway. We sang anyway. Our Zlateh the Goat menorah glowed in the darkness. We stood shoulder to shoulder, grateful for one another, grateful for the quiet presence of local police keeping watch, and grateful for the small, stubborn warmth of community. Even Bowie the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel showed up, utterly unfazed by the weather and entirely committed to the moment.

Chanukah has never been about a single night or a single act. It is about return. About tending and maintaining, night after night. Someone has to refill the oil. Someone has to light the candles. Someone has to decide that the window will not go dark.

At the Maine Jewish Museum, that work looks like opening our doors each day with mindfulness and intention. It looks like stewarding a historic building and the stories it holds. It looks like welcoming students, neighbors, visitors, and longtime supporters into a space where Jewish life in Maine is explored with honesty, warmth, and depth.

If you’ve received our Annual Report this year, you’ve seen that care reflected on every page. As our Annual Appeal continues, I invite you to help us keep showing up steadily, thoughtfully, and with heart. Your support ensures that this work continues, not just in moments of celebration or crisis, but every ordinary day in between.

Thank you for being part of this community. Thank you for standing with us.

Chag Chanukah Sameach.

Warmly,

Dawn

P.S. If this reflection resonated with you and you’d like to support the Maine Jewish Museum, you can make a gift as part of our Annual Appeal here: Donate Now.

Prefer to give by check? We’re always grateful for that, too — just make it payable to the Maine Jewish Museum and mail it to us at 267 Congress Street, Portland, ME 04101. Todah rabah!