By Hunter Oberst
THE KEENE SENTINEL
For the first time since the founding of Congregation Ahavas Achim in 1916, Keene’s Jewish community will light a menorah on Central Square to celebrate Hanukkah next week, the synagogue’s leader said.
The celebration is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 5 p.m., according to a news release from Rabbi Daniel Aronson.
“Jewish tradition says that we are supposed to publicize the miracle of Hanukkah” Aronson in the release. “One way we can do that is to light a menorah in a public space and celebrate with our friends from all sectors of our community. The Jewish community of the Monadnock region is particularly blessed to have strong support from all of our neighbors.”
In an interview Wednesday, he said the event is open to the public and welcomes people from all corners of the Jewish faith, and even those that don’t practice it.
“I want progressive or non-orthodox Jews to feel just as proud of their Judaism as orthodox folks feel,” he said. “So this is an opportunity for Jews of all different stripes to celebrate and to recognize how welcoming our community and Keene and the Monadnock Region is to the Jewish community.”
Hanukkah itself commemorates the storied miracle that occurred during the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C. A small group of Jews, known as the Maccabees, retook the Temple from their oppressors, and lit the menorah, a seven-branched candelabra, with the only jug of oil they had left. The oil only should have lasted one day, but instead lasted eight.
Aronson will be joined by Roye Ginsberg, president of the congregation, as well as Keene Mayor George Hansel, Kate DeConinck and Tom White of the Keene State College Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, former N.H. Sen. Jay Kahn and Tom Julius, chairman of the Monadnock Interfaith Project’s Guiding Council in the lighting of the six-foot-two-inch electric menorah. The nine-branched candelabra will be on the square only Wednesday night, Aronson said.
In keeping with the Jewish custom of eating foods cooked in oil during Hanukkah, the congregation will provide sufganiyot — the Hebrew word for jelly doughnuts — and hot chocolate during the event, according to the release. Attendees can also expect to hear festive holiday music, provided by Elaine Ginsberg of Keene, the congregation’s music director and a nationally acclaimed composer of Jewish music and adjunct instructor at Keene State.
In the news release, Aronson wrote that Hanukkah is a time to celebrate religious freedom and to say “no” to those who would try to silence others with beliefs different from their own.
“This year’s candle lighting on the Square also falls on the longest night of the year,” he said. “Can you think of a better time to celebrate the triumph of the forces of light over darkness? It’s a time of great hope.”
In addition to the candle lighting on Central Square, members of Ahavas Achim will join virtually each night of Hanukkah — which begins Sunday, Dec. 18 and ends Monday, Dec. 26 — to light the menorah, with a different household leading the ceremony each night.
Aronson said anyone who wishes to participate in the virtual menorah lighting should contact the congregation at 352-6747 or [email protected].
Hunter Oberst can be reached at 355-8546, or [email protected].
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