Are Public Chanukah Menorah Lightings Days After Bondi Massacre Prudent?

At a public Hanukah menorah lighting on Bondi Beach, Sydney Australia on December 14th, Sajid Akram (50) and his son Naveed Akram (24) fired rifles that injured more than 40 people and killed 15 people (including British-born Chabad Rabbi Eli Schlanger (a father of five children).

Two days prior to the attack in Sydney, the FBI in arrested four L.A. members of a far-left, pro-Palestinian extremist group for plotting to detonate pipe bombs at five or more locations on New Year's Eve (labeled Operation Midnight Sun). 

In the wake of news of the this anti-Jewish influenced  violence, Rabbi Moshe Levin of Lubavitch synagogue Beis Bezalel in Los Angeles defended holding his  community's public menorah lighting with attractive music. 

Speaking at that community gathering, Levin declared that Hanukkah menorah lightings are more important than ever. He particularly emphasized that the menorah’s flame represents an unbroken spiritual light stretching back more than 2,000 years — a light no empire or act of hatred has ever been able to extinguish. “When things grow dark, Jews don’t retreat,” he said. “We respond by lighting more light."

How wise a public Hanukah menorah lighting this week? Chabad Rabbi Moshe Levin, Beis Bezalel

Rabbi Levin said the goal of such violence is to intimidate Jews into silence and fear. Instead, he argued, the proper response is to strengthen Jewish identity and public expression. 

Chabad of L.A. held its scheduled public menorah lightings and music with private security
as well as local police around the city - including at a carnival / concert on Sunday 21 Dec. 

Drawing on the teachings of King Solomon and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, he noted that Jewish history shows light emerging strongest from darkness, and that pride in Jewish faith is a source of protection, rather than vulnerability. 

Rabbi Levin concluded that public displays of Jewish life are not acts of defiance - but affirmations of continuity and faith. “A little light pushes away a lot of darkness,” he said, adding that each mitzvah strengthens the world and brings humanity closer to redemption.

Alan Zipper, Community Engagement Liason, for L.A. Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky's district participated in a different orthodox menorah lighting on a different day. 

 

What "We Think it's Funny" podcaster, Daniel Lobell takes seriously this holiday season.

Gad Elbaz wows Jewish crowd; gets teens dancing, singing MidEast melodies at L.A Chanukah Carnival

Liberal-area synagogue desecration & tauntings pierce complacency

Rabbi doubles-down after vandalism (Photo: Howard Cramer)

Worshipers at the Orthodox Jewish synagogue, Living Torah Center in Santa Monica, Calif ("known as the Home of The Homeless" according to Harry Shearer) are no strangers to antagonism. Last Sukkot, their backyard Sukkah was vandalized with a swastika and smeared crap. Recently, a black intruder disrupted prayers with a "Heil Hitler" and machine-gun rat-a-tat feign. But when the window displaying their 6-foot menorah was smeared with excrement and food garbage, Breitbart News reporter / congregant Joel Pollak attracted global attention to the issue.

Disruptor taunted with Nazi attack during prayers, Nov 17

Synagogue window cleaned from smeared feces Christmas Eve

Santa Monica Synagogue Smeared with Feces in Attack on Chanukah by Joel Pollak, Dec 25, 2016

A local synagogue entrance was smeared with feces and food in an apparent antisemitic attack on the first night of Chanukah on Saturday night. Congregants arriving for prayers on Sunday morning at the Living Torah Center, a synagogue affiliated with the Orthodox Chabad movement, were shocked by the vandalism, which one of the rabbis cleaned as best he could before services. Some feces remained lodged in the upper corner of the building’s facade, and marred a window facing Wilshire Boulevard. Rabbi Boruch Rabinowitz told Breitbart News that the attack was not random. The synagogue may have attracted additional attention because of the menorah lit in the window. Jewish law dictates that the Chanukah menorah be placed in a window facing the outside world in order to publicize the holiday. 

When the temple learned that the TV news was finally interested in their situation, rather than downplaying their window menorah out of fear that it would attract more trouble, Rabbi Boruch and Mrs. Rivka Rabinowitz elected to organize a public menorah lighting party Monday evening. They welcomed the community to come participate in a lighting of the besmirched window's menorah. Even area Gentiles appeared in support.

Santa Monica Synagogue Turns Darkness to Light on Chanukah by Joel Pollak Dec 27, 2016

A synagogue that was vandalized on the first night of Chanukah, with feces and food smeared across the front entrance near a menorah display, held a joyful public menorah lighting on Monday evening to celebrate unity and tolerance.

Community joins in ceremony (Photo: Howard Cramer)

Rabbi Boruch Rabinowitz of the Living Torah Center, a congregation affiliated with the Orthodox Jewish movement of Lubavitch Chabad, told a crowd of over 100 people who had gathered on Wilshire Boulevard that the community would set aside the darkness of the event and spread the light of the holiday instead. “We will make the light burn … we will give the light to another, that they should pass it to another … protect the flame of Godliness.” “It’s not only [that] we care that this synagogue should not be desecrated, but of course we care that no holy place should be desecrated, not in the United States of America, and not anywhere around the world,” the rabbi said. 

Anti-Israel protestors in Chicago

Christmas and Easter has historically brought violence and vandalism to Jewish minorities. Jews in Eastern and Western Europe have experienced a rise in anti-Semitism in the past 15-years- from both Christians and Muslims. But have North American Jews, living in suburban and urban liberal enclaves since the civil-rights movement ''60s, been too cavalier in assuming resentment of Israel and Jews is no social or physical threat.

Is the largely Muslim anti-Semitism of Europe growing on North American shores? Are diaspora Jews oblivious to the extent of anti-Semitism revealed through online media news, posts, and comments? JooTube.TV reports from the post-vandalism vigil to see what  lessons can be learned from the Santa Monica Smearing, the ensuing vigil of support, and in which ways the event might influence how Jews think and adapt to anti-Semitism in our communities.

Valerie Jarrett, Pres.Obama, Hillary Clinton

Are the 70% of Jews who supported Obama and Hillary Clinton feeling betrayed by Obama and Secy of State John Kerry at their holiday-week back-stab of the Jewish State?

Many people assumed that the election of Donald Trump would be a panacea for Zionism. Until January 20th, the Obama administration is setting-up UN resolutions beyond US law which will legally vilify Israel - and socially vilify her supporters in their own communities. More anti-Semitic bigotry and discrimination will surely grow. 

(Will you please support the continued services of JooTube to interpret and depict the battle for the just defense of Zionism and Jewish safety)? Click link here or in the right margin of the JooTube.TV site. Thank you and may you be blessed for a safe, healthy new year!

Chanukah kindles message of rededication to upholding responsibility to Torah; Benny Friedman sings with Pardes Jewish Rock

Rabbi Moshe Parry describes the back-story of the Chanukah (rededication) zealots whom we commemorate with Chanukah; and the parallels between the internecine Jewish competition to maintain torah precepts and responsibilities, then and today.
 

Religious Jewish students from L.A. rejoice over Chanukah concert, sponsored by Chabad, featuring Benny Friedman and Israeli rockers, Pardes Jewish Rock.


Students from Ohr Elchonon and Jewish Educational Trade School ("JETS") sing and dance and spin like dreidels (carried on shoulders and breakdancing).

Songwriter, Prof. Tom Lehrer, amused generations "Spending Hanukah in Santa Monica"

Tom Lehrer wrote and performed "Hanukah in Santa Monica" among other original novelty and parody songs from the 50's to early '70's.



Here's to Judas Maccabeeus (boy if he could only see us)... Tom Lehrer also penned the naughty, "The Masochism Tango."









In the 1970s, Lehrer concentrated on teaching mathematics and musical theater, although he also wrote ten songs for the educational children's television show "The Electric Company." 

His last public performance took place in 1972, on a fundraising tour for Democratic US presidential candidate George McGovern.