December 18, 2006 / 27 Kislev 5767

Dear Friends,

As Chanukah begins, I would like to take this opportunity to send you and your family warm greetings from the bottom of my heart and to wish you Happy Festival of Lights. May the Chanukah candles light our world and bring peace, brotherhood and a strengthened partnership between all members of the Jewish people around the world.

We send Happy Chanukah greetings to the thousands of new immigrants who made Aliyah during the recent year and are celebrating Chanukah for the first time in Israel. May their absorption in Israel be successful and may they find a warm and supportive home here and be integrated quickly into Israeli society.

Let us all remember that in this holiday three of our sons are missing, the kidnapped IDF soldiers who are held by the enemy and are missed by their families who love them and worry about their fate. We, at the Jewish Agency, have taken upon ourselves to stand beside the families, to extend a helping hand, to be with them and to assist them in their struggle to obtain the release of their beloved ones in any way possible: through organizing rallies in Israel and in the world, by meeting with leaders and through any diplomatic and explanatory effort that might promote the process of their release.

This Chanukah, we initiated a world campaign, in cooperation with Ynet website, that is aimed at uniting all Jewish people in Israel and worldwide and all advocates of freedom from among all nations and nationalities from anywhere on the globe, we call upon them to light a Chanukah candle, as a sign of solidarity with Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the kidnapped sons, and as personal and moral support with the struggle of their families and of the Government of Israel for their release and swift return.

I invite each and every one of you to enter the website and light a candle of solidarity for the soldiers. Please invite the members of your families, your friends and acquaintances to do so as well. Let us embrace the captive sons, their families and their friends who fear for them. Let us unite in a joint prayer that in the near future Gilad, Ehud and Eldad will be with their families, their homes and their homeland.

Please find attached the link to Ynet website. Or.ynet.co.il  and join hundreds of thousands of people in Israel and throughout the world who are lighting candles. May our joint candles light their safe way back home.