Hanukkah candle lighting
Hanukkah candle lightingPublic Relations

A moving Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony was held on Sunday at the rest station set up for IDF soldiers by residents in Hevron, the city of the Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and adjacent Kiryat Arba located in Judea.

The ceremony was attended by Hevron-Kiryat Arba Regional Council Chairman Malachi Levinger, residents of the city and, of course, IDF soldiers.

Sources in Kiryat Arba say the ceremony is part of the wide array of activities meant to show gratitude to the soldiers at the rest station, which is named after Yehezkel Mualem hy''d who was murdered in 2001 by Arab terrorists.

At the station soldiers can find hot drinks, cookies and other snacks that are offered every day as an expression of thanks for the role the soldiers play in defending the lives of the Jewish residents.

"Through the rest station that we established for soldiers we merit every day to thank our heroic soldiers who guard us," said Levinger.

Speaking about the holiday, Levinger added "Hanukkah is a holiday of heroism and there is none like it to give our thanks, and therefore this traditional candle lighting is moving every year anew."

The Hanukkah holiday celebrates how over 2,000 years ago the outnumbered Maccabees defeated the Syrian-Greek occupiers and their Hellenistic allies, and in doing so saved Judaism from oblivion.