"Rabbi Shaul Reizes uses the blowtorch to light the first, rightmost candle and leads the children and a crowd of grownups assembled behind them at Habima Square in Tel Aviv in singing the Hanukkah blessings. It was at a ceremony like this one, thousands of miles away in Australia, where two gunmen opened fire on Sunday, killing at least 16 people, including a 10-year-old girl and a Holocaust survivor."
"The tragedy is casting a heavy shadow over the Jewish festival of lights in Israel, where people of all ages had been looking forward to celebrating especially this year, as a ceasefire in Gaza has held since October and all but one of the hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the attack of Oct. 7, 2023, have been returned."
"The Orthodox Jewish Chabad movement lights these large menorahs in cities around Israel and around the world every year. Reizes says what the assailants did on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, won't change that. "What they want to do is to bring more darkness to the world, and we are sure that our mission now, especially this night, is to bring more lights to the world," he said."
Rabbi Shaul Reizes climbed onto a scissor lift in Tel Aviv and used a blowtorch to light a giant menorah while children and adults sang Hanukkah blessings at Habima Square. A deadly mass shooting at a Hanukkah ceremony on Bondi Beach in Sydney killed at least 16 people, including a child and a Holocaust survivor, and cast a heavy shadow over celebrations in Israel. The Chabad movement lights large public menorahs worldwide and leaders vowed to counter violence with light. Public Hanukkah events resumed after cancellations during COVID and the October 7 conflicts, and families expressed relief at returning to normal traditions.
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]