President Shimon Peres on Tuesday night lit Chanukah candles with 300 Holocaust survivors. Peres lit a candle together with Simcha Rotem, also known as "Kajik," one of the last survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising still alive. The event, at the President's House in Jerusalem, saw four generations – Holocaust victims and their children, grandchildren and in some case great-grandchildren – gathered together.
In a speech, Peres told the survivors that they "came to Israel and became absorbed in the life and institutions of the country. You have made a great contribution to the country's economy, its settlement, culture, science, and institutions. You have had a great deal to do with developing the Israeli experience," Peres said.