Hanukkah in Jerusalem: Light without Apology |
Hanukkah in Jerusalem does not announce itself with fanfare. It simply occupies space. Menorahs appear where Jewish life unfolds naturally: in apartment windows overlooking narrow streets, in shared courtyards, on balconies stacked one above the other, in synagogue entrances, at the Western Wall, and in public squares such as Jaffa Gate. The lights are not ornamental. They are functional, ritual objects performing a commandment rooted in history.
For Jews accustomed to celebrating Hanukkah as a minority, this difference is striking. In much of the Diaspora, Hanukkah has become the most publicly visible Jewish holiday precisely because it competes—visually and culturally—with Christmas. Its prominence is reactive. In Jerusalem, Hanukkah does not compete with anything. It does not need to.
Here, the menorah is not a symbol of coexistence or seasonal cheer. It is a marker of continuity. Jewish time unfolds in a Jewish city according to a Jewish calendar, without translation.
Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday whose defining commandment is explicitly public. The obligation of pirsumei nisa, publicizing the miracle, requires that the light be placed where it can be seen by others. The Talmud instructs that the Hanukkah lamp should ideally be positioned at the entrance of one’s home, facing outward toward the public domain (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 21b, open access via Sefaria).
This is not incidental. The rabbis understood that the meaning of Hanukkah depends on visibility. A miracle unacknowledged is incomplete. Jewish survival itself, the texts suggest, depends not only on continuity but on presence.
Maimonides makes this point with unusual force. In Mishneh Torah, he rules that even a person who lacks food must sell personal belongings or accept charity in order to light the Hanukkah lamp, because publicizing the miracle takes precedence (Hilchot Hanukkah 4:12, Sefaria). Few other ritual commandments are framed with such urgency.
This emphasis........