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Group Uses Bumper Cars, Candles to Celebrate Chanukah

Jim Waymer – Florida Today

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL — Bumper cars collided nearby as Seymour Baum, a Holocaust survivor, lit the first candle on a melting menorah carved from ice.

Rabbi Zvi Konikov said Baum was “a living miracle.” Then, he talked about a miracle long ago that kept one cruse of oil burning for eight days. And he said miracles can still happen today.

More pictures in the Extended Article!

They start with the light burning within.

“The Torah says every individual has a candle within their heart,” Konikov, director of Chabad of the Space & Treasure Coasts, told a crowd of about 150 gathered at Xtreme Fun at Jungle Village.

Sunday’s event was the group’s Hanukkah gift to the Jewish community.

Oshri Gal, 24, offered free use of his park to bring the Jewish community together. “I thought it would be the best way,” Gal said.

Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by the forces of Antiochus IV and the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days.

The Syrians sought to Hellenize the people of Israel. Vastly outnumbered, an army of Jews, known as the Maccabees, defeated the Greek army that occupied the Holy Land.

When the Jews tried to light the Temple’s menorah, they found only one cruse of consecrated olive oil had escaped contamination by the Greeks, only enough to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. But the oil lasted eight days.

“Hanukkah is all about publicizing the miracle,” Konikov said.

The holiday is especially poignant for Baum, 84, of Cocoa Beach who escaped Nazi oppression in Poland.

“We observe Hanukkah no matter where we are,” said Baum, who lost almost all of his family in the Holocaust. “It’s a day of freedom.”

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