It’s not lost on Rabbi Yaakov Kaplan that the menorah lighting in Baltimore on Sunday evening was much like the one planned for Sydney, Australia’s Bondi Beach.
Kaplan, who leads Chabad of South Baltimore, knew one of the 15 people killed at the Australian Hanukkah celebration where two gunmen opened fire. His colleague, Rabbi Eli Schlanger of Chabad Bondi, had visited Maryland over the summer to celebrate the opening of a Chabad center in Harford County, Kaplan said.
Schlanger “dedicated his life to lifting others up, and he was shot down by evil terrorists,” Kaplan said at the annual Esther Ann Menorah lighting at the Inner Harbor.
The terrorists “chose Australia, one of the first places in the world to light the Hanukkah candles, because the message was meant to travel worldwide, a message of fear,” Kaplan said. “But they misunderstood who they were dealing with, because we are literally celebrating a holiday that was born out of devastation, a people who had every reason to give up and instead searched extensively for a single point of light.”
The Inner Harbor crowd was small but enthusiastic, bundled up and dancing as the temperature dropped to 20 degrees. Some attendees noshed on doughnuts as kids ran around with light-up dreidels and glow sticks. There was a heavy police presence.
Kaplan said he hoped residents left the event feeling “a reinvigoration of the spirit and the excitement that they had before they saw the news.”
Kaplan lit the menorah with Mayor Brandon Scott and City Council President Zeke Cohen, who both condemned the Sydney attack as hateful. Scott said the tragedy was compounded by news of a shooting at Brown University and the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy in the Morrell Park neighborhood over the weekend.
“When we hear the things that we heard about last night ... our hearts break for those victims and their loved ones, but we never lose our light,” Scott said.
Cohen, who is Jewish, said he spent part of the last week having a Nazi insignia removed from a local billboard. He called for unity amid rising antisemitism and other forms of bigotry across the nation and the world.
Since President Donald Trump’s second term began in January, his administration has investigated dozens of colleges and universities for alleged antisemitism. Federal officials also launched an investigation into Baltimore City schools over the summer after an Anti-Defamation League complaint accused school officials of ignoring incidents of discrimination and harassment.
The massacre at one of Australia’s most popular and iconic beaches followed a wave of antisemitic attacks that has roiled the country over the past year, although authorities didn’t suggest those episodes and Sunday’s shooting were connected. It is the deadliest shooting in almost three decades in a country with strict gun control laws.
Howard Libit, the executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, said it was “remarkably painful” to wake up to news of the massacre Sunday morning. Shortly after, he attended Gov. Wes Moore’s Hanukkah brunch, where local leaders expressed outrage and heartbreak over the attack.
“It’s important for us to show up and to continue to be willing to live our lives Jewishly and proudly,” Libit said. “We’re not going to be intimidated. We’re not going to hide.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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