Awareness campaign launched by the Rebbe in 1973 reaches new heights in 2021
The worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch Chanukah awareness campaign to increase private observance and public displays of the eight-day holiday is reaching new heights this year as millions of motorists throughout North America are being reminded of the holiday through locally initiated billboard campaigns.
“A few years ago, just before the High Holidays, we were thinking of how we could get the message out to as many people as possible,” explained Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel, who with his wife, Goldie, co-directs Chabad of Urbana-Champaign, Ill. “It was then that we hit upon the idea of putting up a billboard.
“When Chanukah came around with its message of spreading light and the overall publicity it deserves, we decided to make a push and take this billboard idea to the next level,” he continued. “After all, there are so many high-traffic areas without any inkling of Chanukah, and what better way to reach them than to display the Chanukah message on a giant billboard?”
Tiechtel has gone on an all-out offensive. The city of Urbana-Champaign now hosts no less than eight digital billboards with another five in the local airport. “The billboard’s digital format is a terrific way of broadcasting the Chanukah holiday, as every night, we’re able to host a ‘virtual menorah-lighting,’ adding another flame on the digital board.”
Shmulik Greenberg of Chabad of Wichita, Kans., couldn’t agree more. His pathway to billboard messaging happened organically. “My wife, Chaya, and I moved to Wichita four years ago, and right before the High Holidays the first year we were here, I walked outside of my house and bumped into a friendly neighbor in his pickup truck. This led to that, and it turns out that he worked in advertising and offered to spread our message on his billboards. From there, we have upgraded in a big way for Chanukah.”
While that friendly neighbor has since moved, Brian Latta, a Wichita native who is the general manager of Lamar advertising company for the metropolitan area, has replaced him and is very keen on the Chanukah message. “Our billboards are a great way to reach people, and it gratifies me that they can be used not only for advertising but for public service as well,” Latta told Chabad.org. “I like the rabbi’s message, and it’s great that we can host it all around town.”
Of the nearly 750 billboards that Latta’s office oversees, the Chanukah message is on 10 of them—some digital and some print. “Over the course of one day, the Chanukah message is displayed on each digital billboard 1,250 times,” he explained, ensuring that nearly every motorist and passerby in Wichita will have heard about the holiday by its conclusion. Credit also goes to Phuong Bach, the creative director at Lamar who designs the billboards and configures them for the digital format.
A Campaign Launched by the Rebbe in 1973
The Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—first set the Chanukah campaign in motion in 1973, encouraging one and all to share the light of Chanukah with their families and everyone around them. Ever since, Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries worldwide have worked to find big and creative ways to share the “Festival of Lights” with their fellow Jews and its universal message of light over darkness with humanity at large.
To that end, the billboard campaign has caught fire this year, with signs springing up all over the nation. “This is the first year we’re doing it, upon the encouragement of other Chabad centers, and the feedback from people seeing has been incredible,” said Yisroel Treitel, who together with his wife, Shternie, co-directs the Chabad Jewish Center of Renton, Wash.
Overall, this year’s Chabad-Lubavitch Chanukah campaign will be one of unprecedented light and joy, seeing Chabad reach 8 million Jews in more than 100 countries. For the first time in two years, energetic celebrantsare once again gathering on streets and thoroughfares, in great metropolises and small towns alike, to participate in the more than 15,000 large public menorahs Chabad is erecting worldwide, while more than 6,500 menorah-topped cars will have hit the road in menorah parades.
An estimated 10 million unique visitors will use the practical how-to guides and discover the many layers of meaning at Chabad.org’s popular Chanukah.org. Chabad is also bringing the light and celebration into homes everywhere by distributing approximately 64 million Chanukah candles, more than 700,000 menorah kits and 2.5 million holiday guides in 17 languages.
Reaching Up and Out Remote British Columbia
In remote Kelowna in British Columbia, Canada, Rabbi Shmuly Hecht, who co-directs Chabad of Kelowna with his wife, Fraidy, is ecstatic about the billboard he was able to put up, crediting his colleague Tiechtel.
“It’s no secret that there’s a lot of hate swirling around in the world,” said Tiechtel. “While the efforts to combat anti-Semitism are certainly critical, it’s equally important to not be just reactionary but to go on the offensive,” he continued. “We wouldn’t want Jewish youth to feel like they’re playing on the losing team. To go out there, and spread a bold and positive vision of proud Judaism, is incredibly refreshing and invigorating—and these billboards are doing just that,” said Tiechtel.
“This project clearly demonstrates how the Rebbe constantly empowers us to come up with new ways to reach people,” he noted. “If one 5-year-old kid in the back seat of his or her parents’ car sees the billboard and is proud of their Judaism, it’s all worth it.”
