אורחים ממדינות המפרץ בהדלקת נר חמישי בכותל המערביהקרן למורשת הכותל המערבי

Guests from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain participated in the lighting of the fifth Hanukkah candle at the Western Wall plaza Monday evening.

Also present at the event were Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar, Rabbi of the Western Wall Shmuel Rabinowitz, Director General of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation Mordechai Eliav, and more.

Rabbi Amar said that "this lighting unites all the people of Israel. Take a good look at the flames, despite all its shades and colors - it is one. One that rises and illuminates and lights up spontaneously. We the people of Israel are made up of tribes and different communities, and that is our strength. We cannot allow ourselves to be divided even by a hairsbreadth. We are allowed to disagree with each other and think different thoughts from each other and also to do various and different actions, but we must remain brothers. Brothers who have not separated and will never separate."

Rabbi Rabinowitz stated: "Tonight we are especially excited to host you here - representatives of the Israeli health system. Our rabbis taught us that there are many different types of heroism. The military heroism of the Maccabees, the heroism of the sages who kept the Torah in secret, the heroism of mothers and daughters, and there is your heroism. The heroism of the emergency rooms and the hospital wards. The heroism of the long shifts and the endless worry. You who are at the forefront of the struggle teach us every day what heroism is."

"On behalf of the entire people of Israel, I would like to thank you, congratulate you and send you strength. A little bit of light repels much of the darkness. And your light - a light of mission, a light of love for Israel, a light of devotion - illuminates us all. Who would have believed that peace would come to our home in such a glorious way in a Hanukkah miracle that sees us with a delegation from the Emirates and Bahrain who are participating in the Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony," the Western Wall rabbi added.

Health Minister Edelstein stated: "I was not privileged to light the fifth candle of Hanukkah. Tens of thousands of people stood by my side at that moment who are not usually being photographed, and in the last year they did not have a single moment [of rest] - I mean the doctors, nurses, the auxiliary forces, all those who fight the coronavirus all day. As in those days when we did not rely only on the miracle, so too today, many have worked day and night in the full sense of the word to bring this miracle closer."

''From here I want to say thank you to them also on your behalf. They believed that the people of Israel could be saved from the pandemic and they also succeeded with God's help. We hope that from these lights of Hanukkah will come one great light for the people of Israel. A greeting is sent from here to all the coronavirus patients, to my friend David Ben Margalit - MK David Bitan, may he soon return to work, and to all the people of Israel," the minister added.