Apr 29, 2018 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 5 min read

Hey, everybody! The Chanukah party is at Saddam Hussein’s!

Back in December 2005, that’s the message Laurie Lans spread among her fellow U.S. service personnel in Iraq. And that was one of the amusingly inspirational stories she told as guest speaker during Chabad of the South Hills’ annual Women’s Spring event.

A retired Navy lieutenant commander, Lans tours internationally giving talks about her unique perspective as a Jewish woman who was on active duty in the Middle East, and the Chanukah tale is indicative of how she has strived to uphold her traditions amid unfavorable circumstances while helping other Jewish soldiers do the same.

Batya Rosenblum, the Chabad’s co-director, had been attempting to arrange for Lans as a guest speaker since hearing her talk and being thoroughly impressed.

“This year, I said, we’re going to try, because it’s our bat mitzvah,” Rosenblum said, referencing 2018 as the 12th year of the Women’s Spring event. “We’ve got to try a little harder.”

And so on April 24, the Jewish learning center in Mt. Lebanon finally was able to welcome a woman who truly has a unique story to tell.

By 2005, the former president of Iraq was on trial for crimes against humanity and being held in a Baghdad building across the street from his Al Faw palace, where Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East nation, had set up operations.

Lans had the idea to celebrate Chanukah – it also is spelled “Hanukkah” – in the palace, and Casey agreed. So she sent some 160,000 invitations by email, announcing: “Giant menorah lighting. Kosher potato pancakes. Come spin the dreidel. Everybody’s welcome. Dec. 25.”

Oops.

“Would you like to know why? One, I was involved with the war. And two, for whatever reason,” she admitted, “I forgot for 99 percent of the country what Dec. 25 is all about.”

The reason she was in Iraq continued to be her main focus as Christmas/first day of Chanukah approached.

“Now it’s Dec. 23, and I realize I haven’t done anything,” Lans told her audience. “I didn’t even get permission to have it in Saddam Hussein’s palace.”

She promptly sought and received it from a colonel who was a Catholic priest and responded to the idea: “This is great!”

Oh, she continued, I need all the ingredients for the potato pancakes. Oh, and I need a giant menorah.

Somewhat bemused by that point, the colonel made a call to an Army Corps of Engineers captain.

“I need you to build me something right away, literally like today,” Lans reported the colonel as saying. “I’ve got a Jewish woman here. Ah, yeah, Jewish. I just want you to build a giant menorah. No, no, no, no, no. Listen, listen. A giant menorah. Don’t worry. I’m sending her right over.”

The colonel hung up and told Lans: “He has no idea what a menorah is.”

She subsequently enlightened the captain, who came up with plans for a sizable ceremonial candelabrum. But there was just one problem.

“Well, I don’t build. I just design,” the captain said. “You have to go to the Army Corps of Engineers builders, but they’re gone for two weeks.”

To the rescue came military contractor KBR, employees of which constructed a 12-foot-tall menorah.

Meanwhile, the day on which the celebration was scheduled raised some issues with the protocol for U.S. military assignments.

“The Christians work for the Jews on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover. And Jews work for Christians on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter,” Lans explained. “That’s a big deal. So I really wasn’t expecting that many Jews to be there Dec. 25. They should be working.”

Come party time, though, Al Faw was crowded with people of her faith. Lans learned that non-Jewish personnel insisted on remaining on duty, even though it was Christmas, so that their Jewish friends could celebrate at the palace.

“They knew about the Gulf War. They knew that Saddam Hussein sent 38 Scud missiles into Israel during the Gulf War,” Lans said. “The non-Jews knew how amazing it was to have the menorah in Saddam Hussein’s palace while Saddam Hussein was still alive. So the Jews had to be there.”

Meanwhile, she had other plans.

“I knew that Saddam Hussein was across the street. I wanted to take a picture, walk over to him and say, ‘Ah-ha!’ and he’d die of a heart attack,” she reported, drawing quite a few appreciative laughs. “I had someone tell me not to do that.”

She spoke none too kindly about the longtime Iraqi dictator, who was hanged in December 2006.

“His entire life, all he ever wanted to do was extinguish light. That was it. If there was light, he would kill. He would torture,” she said. “But it’s always God’s light that wins.”

Lans also encouraged members of her audience to do something she routinely does.

“When you see people at the airport, when you see people at the subway, when you see people at the zoo, I don’t care where it is, and you see they’re in the military, don’t hesitate for a second,” she said. “Go up and thank them very much.”