For the first time, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Kalman Ber, lit the first Hanukkah candle at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany, once an iconic landmark of the Nazi regime.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier attended the ceremony and expressed deep solidarity with the Jewish people.
The event took place under heavy security as part of the "Journey of Light" of the Rabbinical Center of Europe to help Jewish communitieis in Germany mark the holiday.
The ceremony was attended by Rabbis, community leaders, public officials, Holocaust survivors, and many guests, including Berlin's Rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, a member of the RCE.
The Chief Rabbi called on the authorities and the free world not to succumb to violence and terror, and stressed that the lighting of Hanukkah candles is a moral and ethical statement, particularly in light of the attack on Bondi Beach. "We illuminate the darkness, and push back the gloom that wrongdoers seek to impose on the world."
Rabbi Aryeh Goldberg, executive director of the RCE, said, "The Journey of Light is intended to strengthen Jewish communities, to give them support in a challenging period, and to voice a clear Jewish message of faith, responsibility and hope, even, and perhaps especially, in the heart of places where there were past attempts to annihilate it."
The Journey of Light included visits to the Jewish communities in Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Munich and Berlin.