MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political observer Marianna Belenkaya.) -- Even now, representatives of all Jewish organizations celebrating Hanukkah in Moscow are unanimous in saying that the real miracle is that Russia has this holiday.
Only fifteen years ago no one would have believed it possible to openly celebrate Jewish holidays in this country. The Jewish community in Russia today is a living proof that miracles did not happen only in ancient times and can occur even today.
For several successive years, a hanukiah, or a nine-candle menorah, has been placed in the heart of Moscow, in Manezh Square near the Kremlin. Traditionally, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov lights the first candle. The tradition to celebrate Hanukkah has been spreading from Moscow to other Russian cities, he says.
The hanukiah in Manezh Square is not the only Hanukkah menorah in the city. The Jewish community of Moscow's Western administrative district has been lighting a 9-meter high hanukiah at one of the city's cultural centers for the third successive year. "This hanukiah is as big as the one near the White House in Washington, which is considered to be the biggest in the world," the community members say. Still, the height is less important than the opportunity to celebrate the holiday.
Levi Levayev, Chairman of the CIS Federation of Jewish Communities, says that Moscow celebrations show that "after the Communist repressions of all religions, light has finally triumphed." He recalls that his grandfather was sent to a labor camp in Siberia for teaching Jewish traditions and Hebrew to children. The situation in the Soviet Union was similar to what Palestinian Jews had experienced under King Antiochus in the 2nd century B.C., he says. They were not allowed to preserve their traditions, but they rebelled and fought for their rights. This time they did not have to rebel.
The miracle of Hanukkah symbolizes "the victory of spirit over strength," as Russia's chief rabbi Berl Lazar puts it; it is familiar and understandable to all Jews in the former Soviet Union. They survived and revived their culture and returned to their religion. So on Hanukkah, they pay tribute to older Jews, who have managed to preserve their identity. They also commemorate those who fought in the Second World War and saved the world from Nazism, as well as those who died in ghettos and Nazi death camps, and those who lived to preserve the Jewish culture.
It is no coincidence that ahead of Hanukkah, the Russian Federation of Jewish Communities holds the ceremony of the Person of the Year award. The award has been given out for the third time. Berl Lazar says, "Our laureates bring light and kindness to the people; they are rare individuals of high spirit." This fits in perfectly with Hanukkah's symbols. The Federation rewards people who have made a tangible and recognized contribution to developing the country's cultural and public life regardless of their nationality and religion.
The award is given in ten categories.
This year it went to Lyudmila Alekseyeva, a prominent human rights advocate, Yekaterina Geniyeva, Director General of the Russian State Library of Foreign Literature, and publisher Andrei Sorokin for translating and publishing the Encyplopedia of Holocaust compiled by American historians. The representatives of Russian television received an award for the "Tainy Vilenskogo Getto" documentary (The Secrets of the Vilnius Ghetto), and film director Pavel Lungin for his film "Bednye Rodstvenniki" (Poor Relatives). The latter was devised as a comedy, but there is a plotline that is not at all comical: two relatives, the only survivors in their family, meet after having been divided by the iron curtain for over fifty years. For almost 15 minutes, the characters, brilliantly performed by French actress Esther Gorintin, 95, and Austrian Otto Tausig, speak Yiddish without any translation. This is something the Russian cinema has not seen before.
Stage director Kama Ginkas dedicated his prize to his parents, like many other winners. He was born six weeks before World War II and spent his childhood in the Kaunas ghetto. "Kama, you shall live to spite Hitler," his mother used to say. At the ceremony, he said that this award, as well as the activities of Jewish communities in former Soviet republics, were "to spite Hitler, to spite neo-Nazis and everyone who tries to kindle ethnic discord."
Now Russian cities light Hanukkah candles, open new synagogues and Jewish schools. The synagogue in Rostov-on-Don opened after renovations in time for Hanukkah celebrations. Yuri Rubin, chairman of the city's Jewish community, was named the Person of the Year for "developing community life." Sverdlovsk region governor Eduard Rossel also received an award for support to Jewish communities.
If the first day of Hanukkah, organized by the Federation in Moscow, was devoted to commemoration, the second one was meant to look to the future. The Russian Jewish Congress gathered different representatives of the Jewish community at one of Moscow's best banquet halls. Among them were businessmen, rabbis, artists, teachers and students of Jewish schools. Children were the main guests of the celebration. Vyacheslav Kantor, the Congress's recently elected head, lit Hanukkah candles and said, "Children are our future and our aim is to ensure it is a happy one."
The Hanukkah party organized by the Russian Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities was also dedicated to the future. The gala concert at the Vakhtangov Theater opened celebrations devoted to the 100th anniversary of the Moscow choral synagogue. Official festivities will be held in the summer and autumn 2006. At present the renovations of the synagogue are being completed.
Every Russian Jewish organization celebrated Hanukkah in its own way. The light of hanukiahs warmed the Russian winter and suggested once again that all miracles are made by people. The most important thing is to believe in them.
