For more than 40 years, Chabad emissaries around the world have conducted public lightings of the Hanukkah menorah across the globe, inspiring tens of thousands who have attended and millions who have watched online. This year, the Jerusalem Post is providing live coverage of Hanukkah menorah lightings each night during the holiday, including Berlin, Budapest, London, Djerba, and other exotic locations, including Siberia, where a special menorah made of blocks of ice has been constructed.
“Today, there is hardly a city in the world without at least one public menorah lighting, whether large or small, often in shopping malls or central public spaces,” says Rabbi Menachem Cohen, editor of the weekly Kefar Chabad newsletter, who is involved with the program together with Rabbi Shlomo Peles. “Over the years, these public Hanukkah lightings have become the central symbol of Hanukkah worldwide, as the most visible and defining expression of the holiday.”
Tracing the history of these public menorah lightings, he notes that initially, some in the Jewish community opposed them, feeling they were overly demonstrative expressions of Jewish identity. Yet, explains Cohen, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), said that public Chanukah menorah lightings represent Jewish pride, something that should be expressed publicly, in order to transmit the key Hanukkah message of light dispelling darkness. On the evening of December 17, 1979, President Jimmy Carter became the first president to publicly light a menorah near the White House, effectively paving the way for public lightings across the United States.
This year, Cohen explains, in the wake of the murder of 15 Jews at the Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on Sunday evening, these events have taken on even greater meaning. “The message from Australia and across the world is clear: do not turn inward in fear. We must take our pain and our tears and transform them into more light.” Cohen notes that after the shootings in Australia, attendance at public Hanukkah menorah lightings has grown significantly.
This year, on the first night of Hanukkah, the Jerusalem Post broadcast the lighting of the menorah from the Brandenburg Gate, the historic gate in Berlin that the Nazis used for their parades and propaganda events. Just an hour before the event, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced that he would attend, in the wake of the terror attack in Australia. Says Cohen, “Watching online as the Jews of Berlin stood by the Brandenburg Gate – once a Nazi symbol – and seeing Rabbi Kalman Ber, the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, addressing the audience, which included Germany’s President, in fluent Hebrew, ‘I am a second-generation Holocaust survivor, was profoundly moving.”
Thousands of Chabad emissaries (shluchim) worldwide are busy throughout the week of Hanukkah, arranging the logistics of the menorah lightings, working from sunset until late into the evening. Cohen says there are approximately 6,000 Chabad emissaries worldwide. Each emissary organizes at least one central lighting per night, alongside countless local events. He estimates that they arrange over 50,000 public Hanukkah lightings each year.
In Israel, more than 1,400 emissaries operate throughout the country, arranging for the lighting of Hanukkah menorahs in neighborhoods, malls, offices, and military bases. “Some drive caravans with menorahs mounted on their cars, while others visit soldiers on the borders, from Lebanon to Syria, bringing Hanukkah candles and donuts,” says Cohen, adding that many IDF reserve soldiers have said that some of their most meaningful Hanukkah memories stem from encounters with Chabad emissaries who visited them while they were in uniform.”
Cohen adds that Chabad emissaries are especially active in Ukraine, which is in its fourth year of the war with Russia, not only lighting menorahs, but distributing vital supplies and food to Jews who are suffering severe economic hardship. For Jews in Ukraine, Hanukkah includes not only candles and donuts, but food deliveries to their homes.
“Over the years,” says Cohen, “Jews of every background say the public lighting of the Hanukkah menorah is a moment when they feel proud to be Jewish. This event, in which children, adults, and families gather to experience the lighting of the menorah, along with donuts and latkes, brings people together and creates tremendous Jewish pride on a massive scale.
“The message is simple and enduring – increasing the light in the world.”