(RNS) — The horrific shooting on a Sydney, Australia, beach celebration marking the first night of Hanukkah was not the first time terrorists have attacked the international Hasidic Jewish movement known as Chabad, which held Sunday’s (Dec. 14) candlelighting event on Bondi Beach.
In 2008, a gunman stormed the Chabad House in the Indian city of Mumbai killing six. Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, and his pregnant wife Rivkah, 28, who ran the center, were killed. The Chabad House was eventually refurbished and reopened.
And in 2019, a shooting at a Chabad near San Diego, California, killed one and injured three.
In Sydney, a least 15 people, including a Chabad rabbi, were killed and dozens more were injured after two gunmen opened fire. Police identified the suspects as a father and son, Sajid Akram, 50, who died during the attack, and Naveed Akram, 24, who is in police custody. Law enforcement officials called the shooting a terrorist attack.
Chabad, sometimes known as Chabad-Lubavitch, a messianic Orthodox sect within Judaism, often bears the brunt of antisemitic attacks. That’s not only because its leaders are conspicuous looking — men wear black suits and hats, women wear long skirts and wigs. It’s also because Chabad is boldly public facing.
Unlike other Haredi Jewish groups, which are known for their insular, tight-knit communities that do not often mix with the wider secular society, Chabad is especially visible and exposed. The movement caters to nonobservant Jews wherever they are with a mission of transforming society to hasten the coming of the messiah.
With about 3,500 centers in more than 100 countries, Chabad has become the face of Judaism, and no more so than at Hanukkah, the eight-day festival that celebrates an ancient Jewish victory.
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Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, for example, is home to only about 1,000 Jews, but Chabad hosted a public Hanukkah candlelighting event in the city’s St. Andrew Square. Rabbi Pinny Weinman, Edinburgh’s Chabad rabbi, lit a large metal menorah, and a guitar player played and sang Hanukkah melodies.
Weinman said he knew Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the assistant Chabad rabbi from Sydney who was killed in the shooting.
“There was no doubt in our minds that this is exactly what he would want,” Weinman said, referring to the public candlelighting on the city’s square. “This is the message of Hanukkah — that light will always prevail over darkness. So this is our obligation and duty to all those that lost their life and all of those that are injured in Australia — that we have to stand up to ensure that the light of Judaism continues to shine brightly here in Edinburgh and throughout the world.”
The Edinburgh celebration drew hundreds of people to a tent offering free latkes, or potato pancakes, and sufganiyot, or jelly doughnuts.
Chabad Hanukkah lightings went on as planned elsewhere, too, including in New York City, which erected a 36-foot menorah near Central Park the group claimed to be the world’s tallest. The movement said it installed 15,000 public menorahs around the globe this year.
Founded in the Russian Empire 250 years ago, Chabad was transformed into a worldwide movement by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as “the Rebbe.” Schneerson, who was born in Ukraine but moved to the United States in 1950, brought the sect to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, where it is now headquartered.
It was his vision to offer full-service Jewish hubs around the world that provide regular worship, Friday night kosher meals and a bevy of other services.
Though most Jews around the world are not Orthodox, nor do they affiliate with Chabad, the sect has become the glue that keeps far-flung Jews connected, regardless of their denominational ties. When Jews need immediate assistance with housing, kosher meals or prayer, they often turn to Chabad. The movement’s model also doesn’t require congregants to pay dues like many other synagogues do, including during holidays, inviting all Jews to attend.
Chabad has in recent years made celebrations of Hanukkah a more robust — even muscular — display of Jewish pride. Outside Columbus, Ohio, three years ago, a Chabad rabbi dressed as Judah Maccabee, the Jewish rebel who, according to Hanukkah legend, cleansed the Jerusalem temple of Hellenizers, popped out of a helicopter into a snow-covered field while a candy cannon shot 8,000 pieces of Hanukkah gelt — chocolate coins in gold foil — and dreidels to kids who rushed out to collect them.
In a statement on its website Monday, Chabad quoted the slain Sydney rabbi from an interview last year in which he talked about how to respond to growing antisemitism: “In the face of darkness, the way forward is always the same,” he said. “Be more Jewish, act more Jewish and appear more Jewish.”
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