הרב ישראל דיסקין, שליח חב״ד ראשי במינכןיהונתן גוטליב

Hundreds of members of the Jewish community in Munich, Germany, on Sunday evening attended a candle lighting ceremony marking the first night of Hanukkah.

The Hanukkah menorah which was lighted is 9.5 meters high and weighs a ton and a half. It was placed outside the Jewish Center in Munich, near the remains of the building which housed the Nazi party headquarters and which contained, among other things, the Blutfahne, or Blood Flag, that was carried during the failed Beer Hall Putsch in the city, during which it became soaked in the blood of one of the SA men who died and became a Nazi symbol.

"When you light the menorah in the city at the center of which there was a Nazi center 80 years ago, you feel as though the light defeated the darkness," Rabbi Israel Diskin, the Chabad representative in Munich who has been conducting the menorah lighting for 22 years, told Arutz Sheva.

He added, "It is important to light a menorah right in the heart of Munich because Judaism is not something you hide at home behind the curtain. Judaism today in the whole world, including in Germany, is something that you go outside with."

"One of the results of the menorah lighting in Munich is that it gave the Jews pride. Do not hide your Judaism and do not be ashamed of Judaism," said Rabbi Diskin.

הדלקת חנוכיית הענק במינכןבית חב"ד מינכן