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Ridge kids celebrate Hanukkah

Ridge kids celebrate Hanukkah
Photo by Steve Solomonson

Let there be light!

Kids and parents kicked off Hanukkah — the Festival of Lights — last Tuesday with crafts and fun at the Bay Ridge Jewish Center.

Ariela Sagor, 6, gets in the holiday spirit with her hand-painted dreidel at Tuesday’s Hanukkah Feast at the Bay Ridge Jewish Center.
Photo by Steve Solomonson

Attendees of the Fourth Avenue congregation’s inaugural event between 80th and 81st streets kicked off the first night of the eight day celebration with dreidel painting, making menorahs out of clay, and, of course, playing bingo.

It’s part of a new tradition sparked by Dina Rosenberg, the center’s new rabbi.

Mmm, fried potatoes: Daniel Olshanitsky, age six, enjoys a latka.
Photo by Steve Solomonson

“They’re doing a lot of new things at the temple — family oriented things,” said Robin Kaye, whose six-year-old daughter, Bailey, spent the afternoon making crafts. “She loved painting the dreidel.”

Karen Sagor, whose daughter Ariela goes to Hebrew school at the center, said that her six-year-old also enjoyed making her own dreidels — but that was only the beginning.

Avi Stern lights a candle in a self-made clay menorah during Tuesday’s Hanukkah feast the Bay Ridge Jewish Center.
Photo by Steve Solomonson

“The kids liked lighting the Hanukkah candles, and then they got to come home and open their presents,” she said.