UPDATED: Dec. 3, 2018 at 10:55 p.m.

Hanukkah music filled the air on Sunday evening at the corner of Clinton Square. A crowd of people — and ice skaters in the rink — stood to watch Chabad Rabbi Yaakov Rapoport and Mayor Ben Walsh light the massive menorah in downtown Syracuse.

Hanukkah falls at a different time each year, and this year’s celebration starts during the end of the semester. As a typically family-oriented holiday, it may be difficult for students to celebrate with their families, but there are still options for students to observe the holiday on campus.

“When they’re in school, sometimes Hanukkah can often get put to the side,” Rapoport said. “But here they’ll be in Syracuse for the whole Hanukkah, and so that just makes our job more rewarding.”

The two men were lifted into the air with the help of Syracuse Fire Department’s truck No. 3 to light the menorah for the first night of Hanukkah. Walsh lit the shamash candle, the central candle used to light the other eight candles, and Rapoport lit the first candle for the first night.

The Syracuse Fire Department assisted with the celebration by lifting Mayor Ben Walsh and Rabbi Yaakov Rapoport to the top of the menorah. Doug Steinman | Staff Photographer

Rapoport said the mayor lights the shamash because he’s the “most important” person in the city, and it’s the most important candle of the menorah.

Every year, people of the Jewish faith celebrate Hanukkah, the festival of lights. The holiday lasts eight nights and comes with various traditions for observers to partake in. The most significant component of Hanukkah is the lighting of the menorah, when a new candle is lit each night.

Syracuse University’s two major Jewish organizations, the Chabad House and the Hillel Jewish Student Union, have provided menorahs and Hanukkah candles for students who wish to celebrate in their dorm rooms.

Students who live in dorms are not permitted to light the candles in their rooms, Rabbi Zalman Ives said. But students can light the candles in the lounge or lobbies of their respective buildings.

“We’ll be there to make sure you have what you need to have a fun Hanukkah party,” Zalman Ives said.

Rabbi Yaakov Rapoport, Central New York Chabad Rabbi, and Mark Silva load oil into the lantern that will light the Menorah. Doug Steinman | Staff Photographer

Both Hillel and Chabad are hosting their own Hanukkah celebrations. On Sunday, Hillel hosted an event called “Donut Stress” through their First-Year Students of Hillel program, which offered students free sufganiyots, traditional jelly doughnuts. Hillel Rabbi Leah Fein said she thought it would be good to have a party that helped students de-stress right before finals.

All of those events will lead up to Chabad’s “Winter Wonderland,” which takes place Wednesday at 7 p.m. on the Quad. The celebration will include an ice sculpture menorah outside of Hendricks Chapel.

After the candle lighting, the event will move to Hendricks Chapel to continue the celebrations with various activities, such as doughnut decorating, a dreidel competition and traditional Hanukkah food.

Members at Chabad will also be walking to all of the dining halls on campus to provide candles and menorahs for students who need them.

Both of these organizations will host a special Shabbat dinner on Friday night in honor of Hanukkah, where the menorah will be lit, latkes and jelly doughnuts will be served and dreidel will be played.

Rabbi Yaakov Rapoport will be lighting menorahs in places such as Destiny USA and Syracuse Hancock International Airport and will also have a menorah on top of his car. Doug Steinman | Staff Photographer

Since the Pittsburgh shooting, both organizations said they saw an increase of people attending Shabbat. Rapoport said it’s meaningful that Hanukkah falls a month after the Pittsburgh shooting.

“The light of the Hanukkah menorah and our basic idea that a little light dispels a lot of darkness, it’s very meaningful and very pertinent today,” he said.

For Rapoport, this idea of light and darkness is the same idea he and Zalman Ives echoed at the Pittsburgh vigil earlier this semester.

When lighting the menorah in Clinton Square, Walsh said there has never been a more important time to embrace Syracuse’s diversity — the city’s greatest strength, he said.

“When it comes to matters of light and good, we always increase, we never decrease,” he said.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the liquid poured into the lantern was misstated. It’s actually oil. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on December 2, 2018 at 10:42 pm

Contact Sarah: srslavin@syr.edu