Sydney menorah-lighting nixed after terror attack
Chabad cancels public Hanukkah ceremony for first time in 30 years after attack on cafe near where 33-foot menorah was to be set up
SYDNEY – The public Hanukkah candle lighting at Sydney’s Martin Place was canceled for the first time in almost 30 years following a terror attack that killed two Australians.
Chabad, which has erected a giant 33-foot Hanukkah menorah in downtown Sydney for the past three decades, issued a statement Thursday saying it had called off the lighting.
“Due to the very recent terror attack in Martin Place and with sensitivity towards the families of the victims of terror, the Hanukkah commemoration scheduled for this evening has regrettably been canceled,” the statement read.
“The Jewish community of Australia expresses our deepest sympathy for the families of the Martin Place tragedy. May the lights of the festival of Hanukkah bring comfort and warmth to our nation,” the statement concluded.
The giant menorah was scheduled to be erected Monday night, but the 16-hour siege inside Lindt chocolate café, just yards away from where the menorah is normally erected, was still underway.
Two hostages, café manager Tori Johnson, 34, and barrister Katrina Dawson, 38, were killed around 2 a.m. Tuesday when special agents stormed the café and killed the lone gunman, Man Haron Monis, a self-styled Iranian cleric who had forced hostages to hold up a flag bearing the Shahada – the testament of the Islamic creed – in the window.
Instead of the public candle lighting, Johnson’s father Ken was greeted Thursday afternoon at the memorial site – a sea of tens of thousands of bouquets of flowers – by multi-faith leaders, including Levi Wolff and Zalman Kastel, both Chabad rabbis.
“We have people from all faiths coming together to show that we are a very strong united people and a strong country,” Rabbi Wolff said. “A small, little bit of light distills a tremendous amount of darkness.”
On Tuesday morning, Wolff placed a small menorah among the sea of flowers at the site with a message offering sympathies to the families affected.
Wolff had earlier expressed hope that authorities would allow the candle lighting to go ahead, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
