Jewish resolve and pride around the world on the final night of Chanukah
Following the stabbing of five people in a rabbi’s home in Monsey, N.Y., which shattered Chanukah celebrations and intensified fears of attacks in Jewish communities nationwide, a record number of celebrants turned out for a display of positive Jewish resolve and pride at publlic menorah-lightings nationwide on the eighth and final night of the holiday.
More participants than ever before attended a Chanukah festival in Glendale, Colo., on Sunday evening. Rabbi Mendy Sirota, educational and program director of Denver’s Western Center for Russian Jewry, said it was celebrated by “many Jewish participants eager to stand together and face down growing anti-Semitism throughout the United States and the world, with a defiant dose of Jewish pride.”
Glendale’s mayor, Mike Dunafon, will be in attendance together with the Glendale Police Chief William Haskins in light of Saturday night’s tragic event. “Many in this community fled religious persecution in the former Soviet Union and are showing up in numbers we haven’t seen to show solidarity,” noted Sirota.
Across the Atlantic in suburban London, Rabbi Yosef Sharfstein, co-director of Bushey Chabad, held a menorah-lighting on Bushey’s High Street on Sunday evening. He said that “with the attack in New York and recent anti-Semitic graffiti seen in London suburbs, we decided to use the opportunity to celebrate Jewish pride in an open and festive atmosphere. And what better place than the Bushey High Street? Even one act of light can make the world a brighter place.”
There was a large turnout at the historic Fifth Avenue menorah at 59th Street near Central Park, right outside the Plaza Hotel. “They want us to be afraid—to fear proudly proclaiming our Jewish identity. The opposite is happening here. We’re doubling down on our Jewish pride,” stated Rabbi Shmuel M. Butman, director of Lubavitch Youth Organization, which puts on the event every year.
Florida’s Singer Island will be lit up on the eighth night of the holiday with a community menorah-lighting at Marina Village. “The message of the menorah is ever more relevant today: We must add light. The power of light is innately brighter and stronger than any darkness in the world,” said Rabbi Berel Namdar, co-director of Chabad Singer Island.
Chanukah menorahs weren’t the only symbols of Jewish pride and protection on display. In St. Lucia, West Indies, Rabbi Avromy Super, co-director of the island’s Chabad center, received a call on Sunday morning from Nitzan Sneh, an Israeli yachting enthusiast based out of Boston who, shocked by the attack, wanted to affix a mezuzah to his boat in a display of Jewish pride. “For sailors, it’s especially important,” said Sneh, “because we can be anywhere in the world on our boat. This mezuzah will show the world that we have nothing to fear.”
This year, Chabad-Lubavitch has set up more than 15,000 large public menorahs in more than 100 countries around the world, including in front of landmarks such as the White House in Washington, D.C.; the Eiffel Tower in Paris; and the Kremlin in Moscow. The menorah-lightings are part of the worldwide Chanukah campaign, an initiative launched in 1973 by the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. The campaign focuses on creating awareness and promoting observance of the holiday.
Using Twitter to reach congregants and friends in Salt Lake City, Utah, Rabbi Avremi Zippel echoed a sentiment shared by Jewish people around the world. “Tonight, I will proudly and publicly light a menorah in Downtown SLC. I will not cower in the face of anti-Semitism.”
