South Carolina welcomes Hanukkah with nearly 20 years of State House menorah lightings
A brass quintet played on the steps of the South Carolina State House as Chavi Epstein began laying latkes in neat rows across plastic fold-out tables. The latkes are a Jewish potato pancake and a Hanukkah favorite.
They’re for a treat after the ceremony, says Epstein, wife of Rabbi Hesh Epstein, with Chabad South Carolina, who helps organize the annual recognition of Hanukkah on the State House grounds.
State and local dignitaries sat on fold-out chairs next to a podium and a menorah standing taller than any of the guests invited to the 18th annual Isadore E. Lourie Hanukkah Menorah Lighting Ceremony, marking the second night of Hanukkah. Gov. Henry McMaster and Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann were in attendance. State Rep. Beth Bernstein, D-Richland, and former Sen. Joel Lourie, son of celebrated former state lawmaker Isador Lourie, chaired the event.
Many of those who spoke during Monday nights events referenced Hanukkah’s origin story.
The holiday commemorates a Jewish military victory by a small band of brothers over an oppressive Greek-Syrian regime in the second century B.C. The Maccabees, as the Jewish group of renegades became known, fought their way back to and reclaimed a desecrated temple.
They rededicated the temple and held an eight-day celebration, where they hoped to light a menorah each day. Just one vial of oil remained at the temple, and it should have been enough to light the menorah for a single day. Miraculously, it lasted for eight.
“(Antisemitism) has reared its ugly head in pretty much every century,” said Lilly Filler, chair of the South Carolina Council on the Holocaust and the night’s keynote speaker. She invoked the crusades, the Holocaust and now, modern examples of antisemitism that are on the rise.
“We must be resolved to remember the light does shine,” she said, noting that Hanukkah is considered a celebration of freedom over oppression and light over darkness.
Those who spoke Monday said even non-Jewish residents can believe in Hanukkah’s message of freedom.
McMaster and Rickenmann both asserted their opposition to antisemitism in remarks shared Monday.
Many who spoke invoked recent examples of hatred across the U.S. as well as locally, such as earlier this year when antisemitic flyers were found spread across a neighborhood in Forest Acres.
As remarks concluded Monday evening, director of the Columbia Jewish Federation Ana Sazonov stood to light the menorah. Members of the audience sang a song in Hebrew as the first two candles on the menorah were lit.
Hanukkah began Sunday, Dec. 18, and runs through the evening of Monday, Dec. 26.
