Chanukah candles lit at the Eiffel Tower

More than 3,000 Jews participated in the lighting of the first Chanukah candle in Paris on Sunday night.

A crowd of mostly children, teenagers and young parents cheered and danced to the loud Hassidic music during the event organised yearly by the French Beit Loubavitch, an organisation attached to the Chabad movement. A film on the organisation’s accomplishments in 2005 was shown by segments throughout the night on a giant screen and young Orthodox men distributed leaflets and newsletters to secular participants.

Through satellite the assembly shared the lighting ceremony with Jewish communities throughout the world in Moscow, New York and Jerusalem.

“How could we have stayed home and not come here?” asked 24-year-old Deborah, who came to the candle lighting with her sisters, mother and grandmother. “The menorah is so beautiful in front of the Eiffel tower,” she added pointing at the candelabra. “But even more beautiful is to see all of us here together.”

Dancing and joy

The temperature was low on the Champ de Mars, but participants waited patiently for an hour to see the lighting. “It is freezing tonight, but you came anyway and I want to congratulate you on that,” said Guy Nissenbaum, the master of ceremony.

A camera circled around the square, filming smiling children and hora dances who were shown on the screen. Most of the teenagers took pictures of their friends, the crowd and the menorah with their mobile phones.

Passers-by looked intrigued by the excitement and one Jewish woman, Julie, said she was opposed to public lighting.

“Why do they want all of this attention? I think the lighting should be done at home,” she said.

Light in dark days

“On the contrary!” Paris chief Rabbi David Messas told EJP. “Some commandments are to be done at home or in other places, but Chanukah candle lighting should be done in the open, so that many people can see it. It’s an occasion for the Jewish people, religious and secular, to celebrate together the victory of light over darkness, and in this period of thick darkness we need a great amount of light.

“It’s the Jews’ responsibility to show this light to society at large. The lighting is also a glimpse at messianic times, because when the Messiah will be here, he will enlighten the whole world.”

“Exile is like a dream, it’s not always logical,” said Nissenbaum. “When the Iranian leader is calling for genocide the world doesn’t seem to react. But when we light the first candle, it’s extraordinary: it’s a brightness in the sky and out in the dark world. Soon we will be all liberated, us and the whole of humanity.”

Beit Loubavitch will organise public lighting in Paris and throughout France on every night of the holiday.

On Sunday, a second lighting was organised in the Vel-Hiv square, where Parisian Jews were detained during the Second World War before being sent to concentration camps. The symbolic event was a personal initiative.