Public Menorah lighting at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station with Mayor Michael Nutter.

Menorah Lit at Spot Where Frierdiker Rebbe Arrived in Philadelphia Exactly 85 Years Earlier

On Monday, Dec. 16th, 1929 (exactly 85 years ago to the day), a Philadelphia Yiddish Newspaper reported that a day before – on Sun, December 15th, 1929 at 12:45pm – there were cries of “baruch haba” from a crowd of 3,000 strong who were gathered at 30th Street train station to greet Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneershon, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Rabbis and dignitaries, along with Mr. Thather, Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick’s assistant secretary, greeted the Rebbe and invited him to in the name of Philadelphia to visit Independence Hall. There, from President Washington’s chair, he was invited to bestow his blessing to the American Republic.

The Rebbe later related in his diary many details of this trip; regarding the parade to Independence Hall he wrote: “A few hundred other cars followed us. All the streets were closed and we traveled with a police honor guard (unlike in the past, the one that brought me to Spalerna [prison in the USSR]).

The Rebbe’s arrival in Philadelphia took place only a short year and a half after he was arrested, sentenced to death and subsequently freed – all for practicing and spreading Judaism in the Soviet Union.

[The Rebbe was remarking on the contrast of the guard that escorted him to prison and the guard escorting him here in the US]

After the Rebbe’s remarks, he placed a wreath of flowers beneath the liberty bell. Before placing it, the Rebbe aid, “Liberty based on faith is the most proper and the strongest.”

Under the Previous Rebbe’s leadership, and under his successor the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the freedom and pride to practice the Jewish faith openly has been celebrated and encouraged to unprecedented historical proportions, and one of those instances are the displays of Chanukah Menorahs in public.

Chanukah serves as a symbol and message of the triumph of spirit over matter, of light over darkness and of freedom over oppression. The Chanukah Menorah therefore serves as a symbol of Religious freedom for all.

It was only 41 years ago, in 1973, when under the Rebbe’s direction the world’s first public menorah was displayed in Philadelphia across from Independence Hall. From the Rebbe spread the practice to all corners of the earth. Today, Menorahs are displayed and lit from Red Square to Martin Place in Sydney [this year it was cancelled], from the White house with Vice President Joe Biden to Philadelphia with its current Mayor, Michael Nutter.

“I would like to thank Mayor Michael Nutter for joining us on Tuesday for the Menorah lighting at 30th Street. Thanks G-d, we have come a very long way in being proudly Jewish in the public sphere and religious freedom and tolerance,” said Shliach to University of Pennsylvania Rabbi Levi Haskelevich.

“Thanks to Michael Shambon and Daniel Shimansky for helping us with the lighting and the singing and to all the people at Amtrak especially Craig Schultz and Paul Roddy for partnering with us and making it possible,” he added.

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