Giant ‘Cannorah’ to be kindled

SHARON - The construction of the first ever “Cannorah” in Sharon is going to be the highlight of the annual Chanukah celebration at Chabad of Sharon. You CAN light up a life. The Can Food Menorah is being organized, built and donated by Chabad of Sharon. You can participate by sponsoring some canned food which will be used to assemble the Menorah. The cans will be donated to local food pantries for families in need.

Chanukah is about bringing light into this world. A menorah built with food cans is sure to add more light into our world. After assembling the menorah candles will be placed on top and the Menorah will be kindled. In addition to the “Cannorah”, this year’s program will also feature Chanukah arts & crafts, holiday music, olive press demonstration, delicious Chanukah treats, and a Feature Circus Show.

The program will be held on Sunday, Dec. 21, from 2 – 5 p.m. at Chabad of Sharon, 162 North Main St. There is no fee. For more information please call the Chabad Center at (781) 784-4269.

Rudd gets Chabad rabbi's blessing

Published: 05/04/2008

The chief rabbi of Sydney’s Chabad-Lubavitch movement blessed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

U.S.-born Rabbi Pinchus Feldman presented a menorah to Rudd before more than 600 people Friday at the Yeshiva Center, Chabad’s headquarters in Bondi.

In blessing the prime minister, Feldman recited a prayer for the nation’s leaders. Feldman, a Kohen, also bestowed the priestly blessing on Rudd.

“The menorah is a symbol of light,” said Rudd, who was making his third public address to the yeshiva. “It is about the Jewish people’s tradition, in the words of the biblical prophet Isaiah, of being ‘a light unto the nations’ and illuminating this world with acts of goodness and kindness."

Chabad has a longstanding tradition of presenting a menorah to political leaders.

After his address Rudd, who also baked challah during his visit to the Yeshiva Center, received a standing ovation.

Eli Feldman, one of Feldman’s sons, told JTA: “The menorah is a symbol of the yeshiva, a symbol of Jewish life."

“Rudd’s outdoing John Howard,” he said, referring to the extraordinary support Israel and the Jews received under the 10-year rule of Howard’s now-opposition Liberal Party. In March, Rudd led a bipartisan parliamentary motion congratulating Israel on its 60th anniversary.

Celebrate Festival Of Lights With Radio Hanukkah

24-hours of Hanukkah programming
Plays throughout the 8 nights of Hanukkah

Tune in to XM-108MIAMI (CBS4) ―

Amid hundreds of all-Christmas radio stations, one has gone Hanukkah for the second year in a row. XM Satellite Radio has created Radio Hanukkah which can be tuned in to XM-108. XM's Hanukkah-themed station is touted as the first radio station of its kind and one celebrated by the satellite network's Jewish clientele, who've long known December's airwaves to be filled only with the holly-jolly, bell-clinging sounds of Christmas. XM-108 will run throughout the Festival of Lights, which begins Tuesday at sundown, not only with Hanukkah songs, like "I Have a Little Dreidel," but also candlelight blessings, Jewish-themed specials, comedy, and Israeli music. There's even some Jewish-themed programming for the kids. If you don't have XM Radio, you can sign up for a free trial at www.xmradio.com. You can also download the Radio Hanukkah schedule. Radio Hanukkah will wrap up at midnight December 12th.

World's Largest Chanukah Menorah on Fifth Avenue

Menorah Designed by Yaakov Agam

NEW YORK, Dec. 3 /PRNewswire/ --

The World's Largest Chanukah Menorah will be erected at New York's most fashionable plaza, Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, by Central Park, between the Plaza and the Pierre Hotels. The Menorah will be lighted on all evenings of Chanukah. The first candle of Chanukah is lighted on Tuesday, Dec. 4th and the last (eight) candles of Chanukah will be lighted on Tuesday evening, December 11th, at 5:30 pm.
The Menorah certified by the McGinnis Book of Records as the World's Largest, sponsored by the Lubavitch Youth Organization was specially designed by world renowned artist Yaakov Agam. Yaakov Agam's design was inspired by a hand drawing by the Rambam (Maimonides) of the original Menorah in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem.
The 32-foot high, gold colored, 4,000 pound steel structure will be lighted nightly with genuine oil lamps. Specially designed glass chimneys will protect the Chanukah lights from the Central Park winds.
"The Menorah stands as a symbol of freedom and democracy, strength and inspiration delivering a timely and poignant message to each person on an individual basis." said Rabbi Shmuel M. Butman, Director of the Lubavitch Youth Organization, who will light the Menorah nightly together with special dignitaries.
Due to the height of the Menorah, it will be lit nightly with the help of a Con Edison "cherry-picker" crane that will lift the lighters to the "Menorah Heights."
The lighting of the World's Largest Chanukah Menorah is always the central event of Chanukah for the millions of residents of New York and visitors to the Big Apple. It is also a favorite with the International media who put the World's Largest Chanukah Menorah in the center of their "Chanukah story," bringing the World's Largest Menorah into the homes of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.
On Sunday evening, December 9th, special Chanukah celebrations will take place at the World's Largest Chanukah Menorah. The celebration will include live music, singing and dancing, "Chanukah Gelt" for the children and hot "Latkes" (potato pancakes), the traditional food of Chanukah, will be distributed to everyone. "We want people to 'taste' the tradition," said Rabbi Butman.
A campaign for millions
New York's most popular radio stations, WCBS and WINS, will carry a steady Chanukah call to millions of people to "Come light the Menorah." The message of Rabbi Butman is for every one to light the Menorah in their own home, "It's exciting, it's triumphant. It's many voices as one cheering light over darkness, joy over sorrow, freedom over oppression."
"The prominence of the Menorah carries an additional message," adds Rabbi Butman. "The Rebbe teaches that soon there will be another light, an eternal light, the eternal light of Moshiach, the eternal light of the Great Redemption."
The lighting schedule for the Worlds Largest Chanukah Menorah is as follows: Tuesday, December 4 - 5:30 PM
Wednesday, December 5 - 5:30 PM
Thursday, December 6 - 5:30 PM
Friday, December 7 - 3:45 PM
Shabbos (Saturday) evening, December 8 - 8:00 PM
Sunday, December 9 - 5:30 PM
Monday, December 10 - 8:00 PM
Tuesday, December 11 - 5:30 PM
For more information call 917 287 7770

Festival of sights

Menorahs can be whimsical and unusual

By Melanie M. Sidwell Longmont Times-Call

LONGMONT — During Hanukkah, an eight-candle menorah called a “hanukkiah” represents the eight nights of the Jewish minor holiday, with a ninth candle lighting the others.
But what a hanukkiah is made of is really up to the imagination: Potatoes. Mah-jongg tiles. Mirrors. Popsicle sticks. Jewel-encrusted metal.
“It’s not what the menorah is made of that’s important, but that you’re honoring Hanukkah, the festival of lights,” said Sharon Schaffner, an artist and member of the Boulder Arts & Crafts Cooperative on Pearl Street, which is presenting its annual Judaica Show through Jan. 2.
“It’s become a fashion statement,” she said of the variety of materials menorahs come in.
The Judaica Show features Jewish objects, such as dreidels and hanukkiahs made of glass, pottery and metal and even whimsical ones shaped like a moose, a whale and domestic pets.
The Longmont Shabbat Group, a local unaffiliated Jewish organization, holds an annual community menorah lighting during which guests bring their own hanukkiahs from home to light.
Susan Scruggs said the the most unusual one she had seen “was something my dad’s family used to do during the Depression, when his family couldn’t afford candles.”
“The kids would each make a fist and put a match between each finger, lighting the matches and saying the prayers very fast as the matches burned,” Scruggs said. “It is also a portable menorah, because all you have to have is a book of matches. I once did this when I was on a business trip because I was traveling light and couldn’t take my menorah and candles with me.”
Yakov Borenstein — a rabbi with Chabad of Longmont, an “unorthodox Orthodox synagogue” — is planning to use bowling pins as a makeshift menorah during a “Chanukah Bowl” at Centennial Lanes on Dec. 9.
“People ask me all the time, ‘What does a menorah have to be made of?’ But a holy thing like this can be made of anything,” he said.
Borenstein recounted a time when he was stranded somewhere during the start of Hanukkah, so he and his companions used what they had: some empty plastic soda bottles and string.
Hanukkiahs “tell our own stories of light,” said Cherie Karo Schwartz, a Denver author and Jewish storyteller who spoke during the opening of the Judaica Show recently.
“The variety of menorahs show that at any given moment, there is light to be found,” she said. “Each person’s style shows how we bring light to the world.”

Melanie M. Sidwell can be reached at 303-684-5274 or msidwell@times-call.com.

Celebrating 'winter' year after controversial tree removal

After unceremoniously removing all of its Christmas trees in the middle of the night last year, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport this season will dispense with any religious symbols and just celebrate "winter."

A panel that formed after the Port of Seattle Commission removed the airport's 17 red-ribboned trees, decided the new decorations will feature a grove of birches in Dacron snow, hung with crystals and mirrors to reflect low-energy lights, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

The port drew international attention last year when its five elected commissioners reacted to a lawsuit threat by a rabbi who wanted to erect a menorah alongside the largest of Christmas trees.

As WND reported, Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky said, contrary to widespread news reports, that he never intended to have the trees removed. The Jewish leader said he was horrified by the decision, which spurred anti-Semitism and angry accusations. The port returned the trees about a week later after Bogomilsky told officials his organization, the Northwest Friends of Chabad-Lubavitch, a Hasidic Orthodox group, was not going to sue.

This year, however, the port is taking no chances.

"What I was hoping for was something that was cheerful and evocative of the holiday spirit, and as much to do with nature and evergreen trees as they could," Commissioner Pat Davis told the Seattle paper "We wanted to move forward without something that would get us back into any sort of controversy, and I think it is very creative. I hope the public likes it – it will take a while to get used to."

The $300,000 airport display – now being assembled in a warehouse – will include foam migrating birds above the birch trees, which will be dusted periodically with non-toxic snowfall to the sound of wind chimes.

The port said it rejected the menorah last year because it didn't want other religious groups pressing to have their own symbols' included.

The port commission this year convened a 12-member holiday decorations advisory committee of religious, academic, legal and business leaders. The panel agreed in July to have decorations that would "reflect the Pacific Northwest environment and our diverse community, and convey universal values, such as peace and harmony."

The installation at airport is expected to begin Nov. 9.