NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, begins at sundown Sunday, and leaders and celebrities from across the globe are wishing everyone a happy eight-day celebration as New York light's the world's largest menorah.
The holiday commemorates religious freedom and a victory by a small band of Jewish fighters called the Maccabees over their oppressors more than 2,000 years ago.
The world's largest menorah will be lit outside the Plaza Hotel at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. The menorah is 36 feet tall and weighs 4,000 pounds, according to Guinness World Records. The event is organized by Chabad-Lubavitch.
This year's Festival of Lights is also being marked with somber remembrance for the victims of violence amid a rash of anti-Semitism in the city and beyond, including a shooting at a kosher market in Jersey City just weeks ago.
A special menorah lighting is being held Sunday evening at the supermarket after a shooting there on Dec. 10 left three civilians, including a shop owner, a shop worker and a customer, dead. A Jersey City police officer was also killed at a nearby cemetery in the shooting.
"In the face of great darkness, our answer is an increase in light," Rabbi Moshe Schapiro, who co-directs Chabad of Hoboken and Jersey City, told ABC7. "And what better time for this message than Hanukkah, when we celebrate the triumph of light over darkness, and freedom of religion over tyranny and hate."
Hundreds of Holocaust survivors gathered at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan on Sunday. Among them was survivor Toby Levy, who spoke with 1010 WINS about not looking back.
"We are proud we look forward, not backwards. This is our survivor skills," Levy said. "So we get together and we are proud of what we have accomplished."
Here are some of the leaders and celebrities celebrating the start of Hanukkah:
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