December 1, 2021
Hanukkah Unbound
By Rabbi Meir SoloveichikFire has opposite meanings to Jews and ancient Greeks.
The Olympic torch relay is one of the most celebrated of international spectacles. Kindled in Greece, the torch is borne by runners around the world, ultimately ending up at the host city for the games, where it is used to bring the Olympic flame into being. The torch is seen as a link between ages ancient and modern, between Olympia and the Olympic stadium, a drama spectacularly staged and internationally embraced.
And it was entirely the invention of the Nazis, created as a means of linking ancient Greece to Germany’s Aryan identity, and to celebrate the dawn of the Third Reich.
The evil origin of the Olympic torch is often elided, but it is important to review the facts. Though many modern Olympics had already been held, it was at the Berlin 1936 games that the torch relay first took place, concocted by chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels’s group of propagandists. Thus USA Today reports:
