{"id":92700,"date":"2015-12-09T15:12:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T20:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=92700"},"modified":"2015-12-09T15:13:16","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T20:13:16","slug":"diplomacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/diplomacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Diplomacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UEJxzGLvMTk\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>For centuries, the lights of the Hanukkah menorah have inspired hope and courage. They may have also been responsible for inspiring then\u2013General George Washington to forge on when everything looked bleak when his cold and hungry Continental Army camped at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777\/8. The story is told that Washington was walking among his troops when he saw one soldier sitting apart from the others, huddled over what looked like two tiny flames. Washington approached the soldier and asked him what he was doing. The soldier explained that he was a Jew and he had lit the candles to celebrate Hanukkah, the festival commemorating the miraculous victory of his people so many centuries ago over the tyranny of a much better equipped and more powerful enemy who had sought to deny them their freedom. The soldier then expressed his confidence that just as, with the help of God, the Jews of ancient times were ultimately victorious, so too would they be victorious in their just cause for freedom. Washington thanked the soldier and walked back to where the rest of the troops camped, warmed by the inspiration of those little flames and the knowledge that miracles are possible.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Whether or not\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/12\/the-truth-about-george-washing.html\">Rabbi Susan Grossman<\/a>\u2019s account is true, it took the presidency a while to acknowledge the Jewish Festival of Lights. Sure, Jimmy Carter may have lit the National Menorah, but the White House has only hosted an official annual Hanukkah party since 2001.\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Awkward photo ops, however, are a December perennial. Now, unless you are an adept lip-reader, you\u2019re probably not going to get much out of this piece of archival news-reel footage. However: at minute two, you will need no subtitles to appreciate Harry Truman\u2019s good-natured bafflement when David Ben Gurion presents him with a large menorah.<\/p>\n<p>It looks like the prime minister\u00a0is instructing, \u201cYou put the candles here! Like this! Like the Maccabees!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell!\u201d you can almost hear Truman saying. \u201cWell, isn\u2019t that something! That\u2019s a fine piece of craftsmanship! Fine! Let\u2019s just put this down here, shall we? And I know Bess and I will enjoy it very much!\u201d Hey, miracles are possible.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>, and the <\/em>Daily<em>\u2019s correspondent.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For centuries, the lights of the Hanukkah menorah have inspired hope and courage. They may have also been responsible for inspiring then\u2013General George Washington to forge on when everything looked bleak when his cold and hungry Continental Army camped at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777\/8. The story is told that Washington was walking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[20490,16395,4948,2861,9081,6849],"class_list":["post-92700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-david-ben-gurion","tag-hanukkah","tag-harry-truman","tag-history","tag-presidents","tag-white-house"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>That Time When Harry Truman Got a Menorah<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"December 9, 2015 \u2013 For centuries, the lights of the Hanukkah menorah have inspired hope and courage. They may have also been responsible for inspiring then\u2013General George\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/diplomacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Diplomacy by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 9, 2015 \u2013 For centuries, the lights of the Hanukkah menorah have inspired hope and courage. They may have also been responsible for inspiring then\u2013General George\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/diplomacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-09T20:12:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-12-09T20:13:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/diplomacy\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/diplomacy\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Diplomacy\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-09T20:12:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-09T20:13:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/diplomacy\/\"},\"wordCount\":380,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"David Ben Gurion\",\"Hanukkah\",\"Harry Truman\",\"history\",\"presidents\",\"White House\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/diplomacy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/09\/diplomacy\/\",\"name\":\"That Time When Harry Truman Got a Menorah\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-09T20:12:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-09T20:13:16+00:00\",\"description\":\"December 9, 2015 \u2013 For centuries, the lights of the Hanukkah menorah have inspired hope and courage. 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