South Hills Lights festival celebrates Hanukkah

This year’s Hanukkah celebration has a special significance for Rabbi Mendel Rosenblum and, by extension, Jewish communities throughout the world.

In leading the annual South Hills Lights festival on Dec. 19, Rosenblum told a story related to him by a fellow rabbi, Eliezer Chitrik of Nuremberg, Germany. In 1938, the city and its synagogue were among those ravaged by Nazis in what became known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.

“There was a young boy who went into the synagogue, and he stole a golden menorah,” Rosenblum, director of Chabad of the South Hills in Mt. Lebanon, said. “He came home, and his father actually slapped him and told him to return the menorah. But by the time he was getting ready to do that, there were no Jews left in Nuremberg. They either left or had been killed.”

Recently, a relative of the person who took the menorah finally sent it back to Chitrik, who lit a candle on it for the first day of Hanukkah and told his congregation:

“If you observed those fires in Nuremberg 84 years ago, you would have logically concluded that the story of Judaism and the Jewish people had come to an end. But eight decades later, this Hanukkah, millions of Jews are kindling their menorahs because light never disappears. It just resurfaces.”

Light is the predominant symbol for the Jewish festival, the dates of which vary according to the Hebrew calendar, commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem from the Seleucid Empire in the second century B.C. According to tradition, a menorah in the city’s Second Temple burned for eight nights despite there being enough oil for only one, prompting the duration of the Hanukkah celebration.

The South Hills celebration took place at sundown on the second night of Hanukkah, which continues through Dec. 26, in the parking lot of Dormont Pool. Chabad of the South Hills conducts the event, which has been hosted by Dormont Borough since 2018.

A featured attraction was the lighting of candles on a 12-foot-tall menorah, with septuagenarian state Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline, climbing a ladder to ignite the first.

“To see a rededication like this year after year, it should be an inspiration to others, an inspiration to accept everyone’s differences, traditions, cultures, their origins,” Fontana said after Rosenblum had lit two other candles. “Pittsburgh’s ripe for that. It’s a melting pot, and we all should come together and admire and respect what others are all about.”

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald also spoke at the event.

“The story that the rabbi told about the menorah is so inspirational, about some of the sacrifices that people made to preserve some of the great artifacts and the great pieces of remembrance of our religious heritage and traditions,” he said.

He acknowledged the attendance of numerous children for South Hills Lights.

“It’s great to see these young kids come out and learn the traditions from their elders. We teach them about what we are about here in this community,” Fitzgerald said.

A tradition the youngsters especially enjoyed was the opportunity to collect pieces of chocolate wrapped in coin-shaped gold foil, dropped from atop a Dormont Volunteer Fire Department ladder truck by firefighter Lori Williams. The treats represented Hanukkah gelt, money given as presents during the holiday.

Further representing Dormont was Daniele Ventresca, borough council president.

“I’m honored to be here tonight to share in the celebration of the Festival of Lights,” she said. “To all of you, all your friends, family and the community, may the glow of the menorah give you light and love this year, and behalf of the borough of Dormont, I wish you a very happy Hanukkah.”