The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the island of Corsica saw its first public celebration of Hanukkah in its recorded history, according to the French Mediterranean island’s only rabbi.
The event took place in the central Foch Square of the capital Ajaccio on Tuesday, the last of the Jewish holiday’s eight days, on which Jews light menorahs with candles, the Corse-Matin daily reported.
“This has been the first time in the history of the Island of Beauty that the Hanukkah menorah was lit in public,” Rabbi Levi Pinson told the daily, adding it is “a historic moment.” Pinson, 27, and his wife, Mushky, opened the country’s first permanent Beit Chabad – that Hasidic movement’s term for a Jewish community center and synagogue – last year.
Ajaccio Mayor Laurent Marcangeli said he was “proud to be the first mayor of any city in Corsica to permit the lighting of candles in public,” as he put it. He said it was “an important message of tolerance.”