Lexington hosted its annual menorah lighting on Thursday night, days after 15 people were killed at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach, in Australia.
“Hanukkah is about courage, faith, identity, and hope,” Rabbi Thomashow of Temple Isaiah in Lexington said. By coming out to celebrate Hanukkah publicly following the attack, “we display our courage, our faith, and our connections to one another,” she said.
This was only the third time Lexington hosted a town Hanukkah event.
The push that eventually got the menorah lighting ceremony approved by the town started three years ago, but it was not the first time someone had tried.
Senior Rabbi of the Chabad Center of Lexington, Rabbi Alti Bukiet, pushed for a menorah ceremony in Lexington more than three decades ago. “In 1988 … the town didn’t want it to be put up. We asked them, and there was a huge issue,” he said. “I let it go for over 30 years, and we didn’t do it on public property.”
The menorah was crowdfunded by a group of 57 people and families, Jerry Michelson, one of the organizers, explained to LexObserver. The group acquired a 12-foot LED menorah to be lit every year.
Michelson called Rabbi Bukiet to tell him about the effort. “I am proud, and I am so honored that the community at large is doing it,” Rabbi Bukiet said. “It is a beauty, and it’s a uniting thing. People are on the same page, and I am very grateful.”
According to Temple Isaiah’s website, Lexington had one Jewish congregation in the 1950s, B’nai Jacob, which served as an Arlington-Lexington-Bedford Jewish community center. By 1959, the congregation split over whether to establish a more conservative or liberal congregation. This divide led to the creation of the Conservative Temple Emunah and the Reform Temple Isaiah.
Three rabbis, from Temple Emunah, Temple Isaiah and the Chabad Center of Lexington, all gave blessings during the lighting of the menorah.
The Lexington Fire Department distributed gelt (chocolate coins), and members of the community passed out latkes and sufganiyot.
Lighting Up Lexington organizes the event, which coordinates with organizations such as LexFUN!, local synagogues and the Lexington Retailers Association.
Lexington resident Grace Battaglia praised the event’s purpose. “It’s nice to learn about other people’s culture,” she said. “I think it’s wonderful, it’s beautiful, it’s a very heartfelt thing to see things in town.”