My Light
A Hanukkah Poem
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
My light—a flame once grand and bright—flickers.
Now dull and gray, clouded by pain—
The pain of death, of loss—
The confusion of an unfair, unjust, and immoral world.
I walk among the living yet feel a bifurcated existence.
I am here, but I am also there.
I am alive, but I am also dying—
Dying inside as my strength wavers,
The strength to find my voice in a world that silences me.
A silence born of sadness and fear—
Fear of being misunderstood,
As my family, our history, and ancestry are distorted.
A malicious distortion, reserved for us,
For we are Jews—a tribe,
A small group in a vast world that so often hates us.
But what does it mean to be a Jew?
It means to be human.
A human whose ancestors faced evil, time and time again,
And somehow still stand.
A human who preserved traditions,
Whose beliefs survived deliberate attempts at destruction.
A human who treasures education, family,
And tikkun olam—repairing the world.
As Jews, we repair.
Like those who rebuilt after the fall of the Second Temple,
We are the Maccabees, who rose against our oppressors.
We restored our temple with but a single day’s worth of oil—
Yet the light endured for eight.
We are a people of miracles,
A people who believe in them,
For we have had no choice but to believe—
To survive.
We survived Egypt, Babylon, and the Seleucids.
We endured Rome, the early church,
The Crusaders, the Ottoman Empire, and Medieval Europe.
We withstood Tsarist Russia, the Catholic Church, the Nazis,
And the Arab and Islamic empires.
We survived, and we will continue to—
Like the Maccabees, for whom we celebrate Hanukkah.
We honor our history,
Living our traditions,
Lighting our Hanukkah candles,
Placing them in our windows—
To shine light upon the world.
And this is how I will find my light again.
The flickering, dull candle will once more burn bright.
I will honor who I am and where I came from.
I will love myself enough to keep my flame alive,
To let it shine boldly into the darkness.
Happy Hanukkah.
Allison Norlian, a three-time Emmy-nominated journalist and filmmaker, is the co-founder of BirdMine, a production company dedicated to amplifying the voices of people with disabilities and other underrepresented communities. Inspired by her profoundly disabled sister, Allison creates impactful documentaries and narrative films, including Meandering Scars and Thirteen, which has screened internationally at festivals like the Austin Film Festival. Her work has earned recognition such as a Catalyst for Change award and an Emmy nomination, as she strives to shift perceptions of disability and bring dignity and humanity to these stories.
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
This poem moved me so much proud of the author, she is my cousin, my sister ❤️
This poem has so much essence at its core. It reverberates through the soul and gives us insight into how the author feels. An author that I am so proud to call my daughter. She is my light.