By Bryan Schwartzman
“People have been coming in here all day,” said Rabbi Aaron Cohen of the Ohr Avner Educational Network based in Forest Hills.
An organist played Jewish tunes as children romped around the center's basement while getting an informal education about the traditions of Hanukkah, the festival of lights.
The eight-day festival started at sundown last Thursday. Jews worldwide light the eight-branch candelabra, the menorah, to commemorate the Jewish victory over the oppression of the Syrian Greeks in Israel 2,200 years ago.
After defeating the Greeks, who were led by King Antiochus, the Jews wanted to rededicate the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, but found only enough olive oil to sustain the temple light for one day. But miraculously it lasted eight days, affording enough time to get a new supply of oil.
While many Jews now light their Hanukkah menorahs with candles instead of olive oil, the children got a lesson in how to light a menorah the old-fashion ed way.
“This is the purest way to do it, with olive oil,” said Israel Davids, a teacher from Tzivos Hashem, a Brooklyn-based Jewish outreach organization.
Davids brought an olive press and showed the children how to extract the oil from the fruits.
But while he pressed the olives much the same way his ancestors in Israel did millennia ago, there was some room for modern technology in his demonstration.
“They used to have to wait three days for the olive oil to settle,” he said, pointing to a modern centrifuge machine which makes the olive oil ready for lighting in minutes.
“They see it in the supermarket, but they don't know what olive oil is,” said Davids.
He said that while many of the children at the party have lit menorahs with store-purchased olive oil, they can't really understand the significance of the lighting until they see where the olive oil comes from.
Many of those at the party had emigrated from Ubezijkstan in the past few years. Since many Jews from former Soviet republics were not educated in the practices of the Jewish religion, the Ohr Aver Educational Network and the Chabad House of Rego Park have made a concerted effort to reach out to Central Asian Jews.
“We are growing,” said Rabbi Eli Blokh, the director of the Chabad House of Rego Park.
Following the party there was a candle-lighting ceremony for the 18-foot menorah across 108th Street at the Yeshiva Chadasha building.
