Lighting chanukiah in remembrance and resolve

A deep sadness enveloped the communal Chanukah candle lighting on Monday evening, 15 December, in Glenhazel, little more than 24 hours after the deadly terrorist attack at a similar event at Bondi Beach in Australia. 

Rabbi Michael Katz of Chabad Illovo lit the giant chanukiah in silence before any word was spoken at the event, with the flames carrying both remembrance and resolve. 

“Yesterday an evil antisemitic terrorist act struck at the heart of Australia,” said David Geyer, acting High Commissioner of Australia to South Africa, who was present at the candle lighting in Johannesburg. “Jewish Australians gathered in a beautiful part of Sydney on a peaceful Sunday to light the first candle for Chanukah. They were attacked. The attack on them was an attack on every Australian. 

“Sixteen lives were taken,” he said, “including an 87-year-old survivor of the Shoah, a rabbi from South Africa, and a 10-year-old girl.” Many more, he added, were injured. 

Yet even as he described the horror, Geyer spoke of courage. “Yesterday we saw the worst of humanity,” he said. “We also saw the best of humanity.” He described an Australian man from Syria who “ran towards one of the gunmen and disarmed him. He was shot, and he saved lives.” 

Geyer told the gathering organised by Chabad, Yeshiva Gedolah Lubavitch SA, and the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), that Australians were responding with solidarity. “Tonight in Australia,” he said, “many of my countrymen and women are at community centres or at home lighting candles in solidarity with Jewish Australians,” he said. 

“Our pain, Australia’s pain, is shared by you too.” With close ties between the Australian and South African Jewish communities, he acknowledged that “many of you will have friends and family in Australia. You will have walked along that beach in Bondi.” Chanukah, he said, “should be a celebration of peace and light vanquishing darkness,” adding, “I’m deeply grateful to be with you tonight for the lighting of the second candle.” 

The United States Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Marc Dillard, who was also in attendance, reflected on the dual nature of the Chanukah candle lighting. “It is clear that we gather tonight in both celebration and in sorrow,” he said. The events of the weekend, he said, weighed heavily, but also underscored why community mattered. 

“Chanukah teaches us that light does not wait for darkness to pass,” Dillard said. “The light confronts the darkness.” The Maccabees, he reminded the crowd, “lit the menorah not because the world was safe, but because it demanded that they do it.” Quoting a recent presidential message, he added that “the flames of Chanukah stand as a reminder of the strength and the resilience of the Jewish people.” He ended with a clear declaration, “Hate will not have the last word. We choose resilience. We choose friendship. And we choose the power of light over darkness.” 

As thunder rumbled and rain threatened overhead, SAJBD national chairperson Professor Karen Milner spoke to the crowd. “I know that there is fear in our community,” she said. “And I think it takes some bravery the night after a horrific attack on a Chanukah event somewhere in the world for people to come out, out in public, out in the open, to join us tonight.” 

She thanked those who had chosen visibility over retreat. Chanukah, she said, is “our most public festival,” one in which “we don’t light our menorahs in the quiet recesses of our shuttered homes, but in open spaces.” As the storm drew closer, she ended with a line that felt both ancient and urgent. “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is to have no fear at all.” 

SAJBD national director Wendy Kahn acknowledged the solidarity from those beyond the Jewish community. She thanked “some of the Christian community who have reached out to us at this very dark time,” and expressed gratitude to the diplomatic representatives present. The presence of the Australian and American embassies, she said, was deeply meaningful. 

When the speeches ended, the candles continued to burn steadily, quiet witnesses to grief, solidarity, and resolve. Lit before a single word was spoken, they made the message unmistakable: even in the aftermath of terror, the light would not wait.