When Was the First Car Menorah

For many years it was thought that the first Car Menorah was in 1977, as Chabad.org erroneously states, “While Chabad-Lubavitch menorah parades began in 1977 with a few handmade wooden menorahs, this year will be the third for Milwaukee, where drivers attach electric metal menorahs to their roofs.”

From there Slate wrote that year that, “These days, most Jews celebrate Hanukkah by playing dreidel, frying latkes, and lighting menorahs. But in the last 30 years, a new ritual has emerged: the menorah parade. Spearheaded by the Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch movement…”

However, Lubavitch Archives proved last year in a post on their Facebook page that in fact there were Car Menorahs already in 1975. A Jewish Ledger December 1975 newspaper clipping, discovered by the organization, states under a photo of the car Menorah: “Six-Foot Menorah perched atop car belonging to Rabbi Zalman Morozov, executive director of the Lubavitch Organization of Connecticut.”

However, Lubavitch Archives was recently informed that Rabbi Shmuel Lipsker would have information on the first Car Menorah, which was created in 1973. At the request of Rabbi Zev Lipsker Lubavitch Archives searched through their pictures and found what became known as the first Car Menorah.

When Rabbi Lipsker saw the pictures he was shocked, “I don’t believe this! How do you have these pictures?” The photos are from the archives of Lubavitch Youth Organization, which granted Lubavitch Archives access to their archives eleven years ago.

Emotional he tells how he tells how he went to his father’s basement, who was a carpenter, together with two friends Yossel Brod (today in Los Angeles) and Yosef Brander. “We took two by fours and banged them together with scraps from my father’s shop. We then took a cinder block and placed it on top of a rented Station Wagon. I remember the only thing we purchased was the rod that held them in place on top of the Menorah.”

Lipsker and his friends did Mivtzoim on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-Seventh Street in Manhattan. “We were giving out Menorahs on the corner every night,” recalls Lipsker, “but I wanted to attract people to come get one, so I came up with the idea to create a Car Menorah.”

For the first few days the Menorah had no lights, candles or anything like that, “a few days into Chanukah we thought of placing lights on the Menorah. The best idea we could think of was to purchase flares and affix them onto the wooden Menorah.”

That night they traveled to their corner and at five o’clock, as everyone was leaving their offices, “we lit the Menorah with a large crowd gathering around to see the spectacle.”

It was a great success and slowly people started doing the same affixing Car Menorahs on top of their cars.

It was the first Car Menorah lighting and also seems to have been the first public Menorah lighting on public property, “though we never intended it to be history, we just wanted to do the Rebbe’s Mivtzoim and reach as many Jews as possible.

For more historical Chanukah pictures visit: www.facebook.com/LubavitchArchives