This December, a head of state standing next to a rabbi and holding a flame to a candle that is taller than both of them has been a recurring image in news feeds. This year, it took place at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. Decades before, it took place outside the White House. The rabbis who initiated this whole thing in the 1970s would have been shocked by how frequently it is occurring.
The custom dates back to 1973, when Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson advocated for Hanukkah’s message to be seen outside the living room window. A menorah was erected at Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell a year later. Jimmy Carter was the first sitting president of the United States to attend a public lighting outside the White House in 1979, and it appears that other governments were encouraged to do the same. According to Chabad’s own estimates, there are currently about 15,000 public menorahs worldwide, dispersed throughout shopping centers, airports, military installations, and city squares from El Paso to Siberia.
The ritual has not changed. What matters is who decides to stand beside it. An hour before the ceremony started this year, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier declared he would attend the Berlin lighting, a move that seemed more like a direct reaction to news than standard diplomacy.
Fifteen people were killed in an attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney a few days prior. It’s difficult to ignore how loaded the scene is when watching video of Rabbi Kalman Ber speaking to a crowd in fluent Hebrew at the same gate that the Nazis once marched through. It seems that leaders are no longer merely present at religious ceremonies. They are expressing their desire to protect a certain type of public square.
It’s important to be open about the reasons this goes beyond appearances. The number of antisemitic incidents has increased dramatically in recent years, and many Jewish communities report experiencing a resurgence of a vulnerability that their parents or grandparents were aware of but never anticipated. In light of this, the presence of a mayor or president to light a candle in a public square carries significance that it might not have in more tranquil times. In essence, it asserts that Jewish life should be lived outdoors rather than behind closed doors.
Additionally, this year’s timing seems almost obstinate. Working families found it easier to attend Hanukkah because it falls on two Sundays, and reports from several cities indicate that attendance actually increased following the Sydney attack rather than decreased out of fear. It’s not a minor detail. It tracks with what Chabad organizers have said for years: public menorahs aren’t meant to replace the private ritual at home, but to serve as a kind of beacon, proof that a community is still there, still visible, still lighting flames in the cold.
Whether this becomes a lasting fixture of how governments respond to rising hostility, or simply a moment tied to a hard year, is still an open question. But for now, the candles keep multiplying, and so do the leaders willing to stand beside them.