Candles in the Trenches: Celebrating Hanukkah on the Front Lines, 1944

by Cristóbal S. Berry-Cabán

As the world plunged into the devastating final year of the Second World War, Jewish American soldiers on opposite sides of the globe found themselves fighting not only for an Allied victory but for a quiet moment to celebrate Hanukkah, the ancient Hebrew Festival of Lights.

Defiance in the Pacific

The air hung heavy and stifling, thick with heat and the smell of war. On the blood-soaked island of Saipan, the thermometer had clawed past one hundred degrees as the sun sank on the Pacific horizon on December 10, 1944. The battle’s fury had mostly quieted, yet scattered bursts of gunfire and sounds of grenades still echoed from the hills, remnants of the Japanese army unwilling to surrender.

On this battle-weary island, where life and death still wrestled in the fading light, a small circle of men gathered for something entirely different. They were U.S. Marines and Soldiers, exhausted from months of combat. Yet in that moment, they came together not for another assault, but to mark a sacred tradition. Against the backdrop of ruin, they prepared to celebrate Hanukkah—the Festival of Lights—a fragile flame of faith flickering defiantly in the heart of war.

The heat was merciless that December day. Rabbi Philip S. Berstein observed that the wax candles in the Menorah—the sacred nine-branched candelabrum—could barely stand erect long enough for the chaplain’s prayers. In the background, the roar of war was omnipresent. On a nearby tarmac, the massive, long-range B-29 Superfortress bombers were already groaning to life, warming their engines for their deadly mission over Tokyo, their metallic thunder at times drowning out the ancient words of the service.

The island had been wrested from Japan in a costly, cataclysmic victory earlier that summer. The stars and stripes had been raised over Saipan on July 9th—but the battle for the spirit, the battle for a moment of peace and light, was still being fought that December night.

With their backs to the chaos, these service members sang the medieval Hanukkah hymn “Mo’oz Tzur,” “Rock of Ages.” It was a defiant, unshakable declaration of faith amid the actual rock and fire of a world at war: “Yours the message cheering, that the time is nearing, which will see, all men free, tyrants disappearing.”

The Sixth Night Interrupted: Chaos in the Ardennes

Thousands of miles away, in France, another Jewish GI was seeking a measure of peace. Sergeant Sheldon Cohn of the 556th Military Police Escort Guard was stationed at the Stenay Detention Camp in France, tasked with guarding German prisoners of war. Having previously supervised POWs in Texas, Cohn was now on the cusp of the Allied push into Germany.

He found quiet strength in lighting his Menorah. But on the evening of December 15th, after lighting the sixth candle, the flame of peace was violently extinguished.

The very next day, December 16th, the German military launched a massive, surprise offensive. The Battle of the Bulge had begun. The serene, wooded Ardennes region was instantly transformed into a maelstrom—the costliest battle in U.S. Army history.

Cohn and the 556th were thrown into the inferno. His assignment instantly shifted from camp guard to a perilous mission outside Bastogne, where he was ordered to direct the vital flow of tanks and supply trucks to the besieged town, constantly vigilant for German infiltrators wearing American uniforms. Survival demanded unrelenting watchfulness.

As the tide eventually turned in late January 1945, and the Allies successfully advanced, Cohn returned to his duty of escorting and guarding overwhelming numbers of German POWs housed in temporary enclosures.

The profound irony of his service culminated in a single, historical photograph Cohn later shared: German POWs being loaded onto cattle cars, bound for Allied detention camps. A Jewish American soldier—whose people were being exterminated on similar rail cars—was now supervising the confinement of his enemy using the very same haunting image of transport, turning the tables on the enforcers of the Holocaust.

Echoes of Tyranny: 2,000 Years Earlier

The war that Berstein and Cohn fought—a world-spanning crusade against darkness and oppression—was an uncanny echo of the event they were commemorating.

More than two millennia earlier, in 168 B.C., the Seleucid (Greek) King Antiochus IV Epiphanes sought to crush the soul of the Jewish people. He banned their sacred practices and, in a profound act of defilement, installed an altar to the pagan god Zeus inside the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

But out of the quiet hills, a spark of rebellion ignited. A small, furious band of Jews, led by the priest Mattathias and his five sons, began a campaign of guerrilla warfare. His son, Judah the Maccabee—Judah the Hammer—took the reins. Trouncing the Greeks with successive victories, the rebel ranks swelled.

By the early winter of 165 B.C., the demoralized armies of Antiochus were dealt a final, crushing defeat. Judah Maccabee marched triumphantly into Jerusalem, and his first act was to purify the desecrated Temple.

Among the ruins, a single undefiled cruse of oil was discovered—sealed and untouched. According to Jewish law, only oil whose seal had been opened by authorized priests could be used in the Temple, and so this lone flask was chosen.

The Unbroken Flame of Freedom

Tradition holds that a small vial of oil—enough to burn for only one day—miraculously lasted for eight. Since then, during the Hebrew month of Kislev, roughly corresponding to December, Jews have celebrated Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Each year, the story from the Book of Maccabees is retold, special prayers of thanksgiving are offered, and homes are filled with light, joy, and the exchange of gifts over eight nights. Candles are kindled—one on the first night, two on the second—until all eight glow together, symbolizing the enduring miracle.

At the heart of Hanukkah is this light: eight flames representing the days the sacred oil burned, each kindled by the central shamash—the “attendant” candle that serves and sustains the others. The season is rich with warmth and remembrance, scented with foods fried in oil—crisp, golden latkes and sweet, jam-filled sufganiyot—each bite honoring the Temple’s lasting flame. As the candles flicker, the gentle spin of the dreidel recalls yet another act of courage: when Jewish children, forbidden to study Torah, disguised their learning as a simple game, preserving faith through play and perseverance.

In the end, the Maccabean struggle was—and remains—a fight for religious freedom. The Jews of ancient Judea battled for the right to worship God in their own way, a struggle that has never been fully won. Its echoes resound through every generation. Though the battlegrounds have changed, the defense of faith and freedom endures. From the caves of Judea to the jungles of Vietnam, from the beaches of Saipan to the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, Jewish service members have carried forward that same light—serving with courage, conviction, and faith.

As the Menorah’s flames are kindled once more, they remind us that Hanukkah is not only a remembrance of past victories, but a reaffirmation of an eternal truth: freedom of conscience is sacred, and the light of faith can never be extinguished. That small flame, once lit in defiance of tyranny, still burns across time and battlefields—an enduring testament that even in the deepest darkness, the light endures.

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Cristóbal S. Berry-Cabán, PhD, is an epidemiologist and contractor with the Geneva Foundation, currently working at Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg. He lives in Southern Pines with his cats—Solo, Biscuit, and Harpo—who are currently entertained by the dreidels he’s set out for Hanukkah. Dr. Berry-Cabán has published extensively on topics in military health and can be reached at cbcaban@gmail.com.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.