New York State Senator-elect Daniel Squadron joined Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Congregation B’nai Avraham in Brooklyn Heights to light the third candle on the menorah at Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza in front of the Brooklyn Supreme Court Building, Court & Montague streets.
Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, commemorates the second century BCE rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after the newly-throned Antiochus IV Epiphanes massacred Jews, outlawed Judaism, and erected an altar to Zeus, in which pigs were sacrificed on the altar.
The Maccabees – Mattathias, a Jewish priest, and his sons Jochanan, Simeon, Eleazar, Jonathan, and Judah – led the successful rebellion against Antiochus in 165 BCE, after which the Temple was liberated and rededicated, and the festival of Hanukkah, the primary ritual of which is to light the menorah for each of the eight nights of the celebration, was instituted by Judah Maccabee and his brothers to celebrate this event.
