By COLlive reporter
Chanukah, one of the highest profile Jewish holidays thanks to Chabad, has got a public start in Washington, DC this year.
With the National Menorah, a celebration on Capitol Hill, lighting ceremonies on campus and additional activities, this is always a high season for Rabbi Levi Shemtov and the staff at American Friends of Lubavitch.
Days earlier, Jewish students in the area have received their own Menorah kits from Rabbi Yudi and Rivky Steiner of Chabad GW (George Washington University) and Rabbi Yehoshua and Esti Hecht of Chabad Lubavitch of the American University Community.
A front-page article in the metro section of the Washington Post described the “crunch time” at the Lubavitch offices in Dupont Circle, ahead of the National Menorah Lighting.
More than 3,000 people had ordered tickets, the paper reported, to the event on the White House lawn to take place Sunday at 4:00 PM.
“The orders kept coming — about one family every 10 minutes,” reported Rebecca Cohen. One of the calls, as she was visiting the Chabad office, was House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Honored with lighting the large candelabra, a role typically given to a prominent Jewish politician, will be Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The article went on to say that the National Menorah almost didn’t happen back in 1979 when Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, the Rebbe’s Shliach to the White House and Chairman of Agudas Chassidei Chabad International, requested it.
“The secretary of the interior initially denied Shemtov’s father a permit to put a menorah on government property, saying it would violate the First Amendment,” the Post wrote.
“Shemtov’s father called his friend Stu Eizenstad, an adviser to President Jimmy Carter. Eizenstad gave the secretary a choice: Either approve the permit or deny the National Xmas Tree’s permit too.
“If he disobeyed, Eizenstad would take the matter straight to Carter, who would side with Eizenstad — a major embarrassment for the secretary. A few days later, Shemtov’s father had his permit.”
“It showed that Jews could raise their heads up without fear,” Eizenstad was quoted as saying.
The article also tells of the advice Mrs. Nechama Shemtov gave her husband Levi when they first moved to the nation’s capital in 1991, after living in Australia. (Read the full article.)
An estimated 45 million people around the world got to watch clips from the lighting ceremony last year.
Rabbi Yitzchak Goldenberg, a Shliach in New Jersey, reported on his Facebook page that his daughter Rivka has won the 5773 National Chanukah Essay contest and will be reading her poem at the event.
COLlive.com will be broadcasting the event live. Tune in at 4:00 PM.
These Shluchim now what to do when! hi ST 😉