EU foreign policy chief and European Commission Vice-President, Federica Mogherini, will host a Chanuka Menorah lighting in the European Commission on December 17, during an event organized by the European Jewish Community Centre (EJCC).
For the last ten years, EJCC, a Brussels-based organization that promotes Jewish culture within the European project of unity in diversity, has been organizing the Eurochanukah events, bringing Jewish culture and the European institutions closer together.
Chanukah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, is one of the most central celebrations in Jewish culture. It commemorates the triumph of light over darkness as well as freedom of expression over tyranny.
More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of God.
When they sought to light the Temple's menorah (the seven branched candelabrum), they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks. Miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.
To commemorate and publicize these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Chanukah. At the heart of the festival is the Menorah, a 9-branched candelabrum, lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Chanukah, when all eight lights are kindled.
‘’Rarely has this message of victory of good over evil, freedom over oppression been more poignangt than in 2014, which has seen an increased wave of anti-Semitic incidents, including the fatal shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, in the heart of the European Union on the day of the European elections in May. It left four people dead,’’ says the EJCC.
The Chanukah ceremonies in the Berlaymont, the so-called European Commission premises, are held every year under patronage and in the presence of distinguished guests. They include the lighting of a Chanukah Menorah on Schuman square - this year by Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders-, in the midst of the EU area in Brussels, concerts and special exhibitions in the European Commission building.