Celebrating Freedom from Persecution for Hanukkah

Hanukkah card sent to Marshall Meyer by Débora Benchoam, November 1981. From the Marshall T. Meyer Papers.

The Hanukkah celebrations of 1981 were especially meaningful for Débora Benchoam and Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer. Benchoam had just been released from four years of brutal imprisonment during Argentina’s “Dirty War,” thanks in large part to the efforts of Meyer. She sent this card to Meyer on 26 November 1981. The card and the letter it contains have been digitized and are available for viewing in Duke’s Digital Collections.

This card is held in the Human Rights Archive‘s Marshall T. Meyer Papers, documenting Meyer’s tireless human rights activism. To learn more about the story of Benchoam and Meyer, see the online exhibit “I Have No Right to Be Silent: The Human Rights Legacy of Marshall T. Meyer” and this 2009 interview with Benchoam.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.