Following a weekend attack on a celebration of the holiday in Australia, Lehigh Valley Jewish leaders celebrated Hanukkah 2025 with a public menorah lighting in Bethlehem.
Chabad Lubavitch of the Lehigh Valley hosted the “Lighting of Unity” event Monday night on Payrow Plaza between Bethlehem City Hall and the Bethlehem Area Public Library.
Hanukkah — also spelled Chanukah or other transliterations from Hebrew — is Judaism’s “festival of lights.” On eight consecutive nightfalls, Jews gather with family and friends to light one additional candle in the menorah — a multibranched candelabra.
This year, Hanukkah started at sundown on Sunday, Dec. 14, and lasts through Dec. 22.
Sunday’s attack targeting a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, killed 15 people. The dead included a 10-year-old girl, a rabbi and a Holocaust survivor. Dozens of others were injured, some seriously. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it an act of antisemitic terrorism.
On its Facebook, Chabad of the Lehigh Valley spoke of marking the celebration with “hope and resilience.”
“When lighting your first Chanuka candle today, please pray for the wounded as well as all of our brothers and sisters in Australia,” the Jewish outreach organization’s Rabbi Yaacov Halperin wrote Sunday.
In Hebrew, Hanukkah means “dedication.” The holiday marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem nearly 2,200 years ago after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying foreign forces.
With the tiny supply of ritually pure oil that they found in the temple, they lit the menorah. According to the Talmud, it miraculously remained lit for eight days. The ritual of lighting a nightly candle and the emphasis on cooking foods in oil, such as potato pancakes called latkes, celebrate this holiday.
The Associated Press and supervising reporter Kurt Bresswein contributed to this report. Reach him at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.