‘More light’: Crowd at NYC menorah lighting insists on celebration after Sydney massacre |
NEW YORK — Jews from around New York City danced, sang and huddled against the cold at a menorah lighting in Manhattan on Sunday night, at a celebration marked by mourning for those killed in the terror shooting targeting a Hanukkah event across the world, at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
“Tonight, our hearts are with the Jewish community of Sydney, Australia,” Rabbi Velvl Butman told the crowd at the start of the event, dedicating the service to the victims. “We pray for the souls that we lost.”
The event on the first night of Hanukkah centered around a massive, 36-foot (11-meter), 4,000-pound (1,800-kilogram) menorah that is erected every year at the southeast corner of Central Park by the Chabad Hasidic movement.
The lighting of the menorah, certified as the world’s largest, is an annual, public celebration of Jewish life in the city dating back to 1977.
The shooting in Australia also targeted a Chabad........