President Reuven Rivlin lights candles for the second night of Hanukkah with Holocaust survivors.
“It is a great honor to welcome you here today to the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, the independent, free Jewish and democratic state,” Rivlin tells his audience of aging survivors.
President Reuven Rivlin, center, lights a Hanukkah menorah at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem in a holiday ceremony honoring Holocaust survivors, December 3, 2018. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
He lit the candles in a Hanukkah menorah that itself survived the Holocaust after it was hidden underground in the Polish town of Sompolno. The menorah “stood in the synagogue of the Jewish community in the town,” Rivlin relates. “During the Holocaust, the menorah was buried deep in the ground, and it is among the only objects left to the memory of the Jewish community of the town of Sompolno. It was a vibrant town of about 1,200 Jews, almost all of whom were murdered in the Chelmno death camp in February 1942.”
Rivlin concludes: “Hanukkah, according to Jewish tradition, has both heroism and miracles, just like your own lives. Each one of you is a hero. The fact that you survived is a miracle. Your story is the story of a whole generation, which rose from disaster to rebirth, which was rescued from the depths of evil and chose life. A generation of heroism and creation.”
President Reuven Rivlin (front, third from left) at a Hanukkah ceremony honoring Holocaust survivors at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, December 3, 2018. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
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Monday, December 3, 2018
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