A Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony took place on Sunday evening at the Western Wall with the participation of Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, the Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi David Lau, the Rabbi of the Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and the Director General of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Oded Plus.
Erdan said at the ceremony, "The Maccabees' victory is not just a physical victory. It was a spiritual victory that allowed the Temple to be restored, allowed the Jews to return to the Western Wall and exercise our faith.”
"Thank you very much to the Israel Police who maintain the security of millions of visitors to the Western Wall every year. Thanks to them, we have the security here to realize our historic right to the Land of Israel, the holy places and the Western Wall,” Erdan added.
Lion said in his remarks, "Hanukkah is a special opportunity to see the special light in our people. As in those days, during the Maccabean period, even at this time, a few people can make a big change if they only muster up the courage and desire to act and change."
Lion turned to the bereaved families who attended the ceremony and said, “There are families here today who have paid the most expensive price. There is no more proper time to thank them than on Hanukkah. The security situation here in the country is not easy, and there are quite a few families who paid a heavy price and make a personal sacrifice every day. Unfortunately, this is part of the cost of survival that the Jewish people have been paying for thousands of years both in the Diaspora and here after Israel's rebirth.”
"There are heroic families with us here, families who are the Maccabees of our generation, families who deal daily with bereavement, the loss of a father or mother in the family, and move on, struggling to hold on to life, holding their candle with all their might and banishing the darkness with it," Lion added.