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By Joshua Runyan · December 21, 2011 As he did last year, Jacob Lew, who as director of the Office of
Management and Budget is the highest-ranking Jewish official in the
Obama administration, ushered in the eight-day holiday of Chanukah
Tuesday night by lighting the National Menorah.
(Photos: Baruch Ezagui)
Towering above President’s Park, the lighting of the National Menorah has been an American Friends of Lubavitch tradition since the Carter administration.
A conductor from the U.S. Marine Band sets the mood for the annual celebration at the Ellipse, just south of the White House.
Chanukah is “the victory of light over darkness, of right over might, of justice over tyranny,” Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Washington director of American Friends of Lubavitch, told the crowd.
Rabbi Abraham and Bat-Sheva Shemtov, left, sat next to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski and OMB director Jacob Lew for the pre-lighting celebration.
Flanked by Rabbis Abraham Shemtov, the Philadelphia-based chairman of the umbrella international organization Agudas Chasidei Chabad, and Levi Shemtov, the Washington director of American Friends of Lubavitch, OMB director Jacob Lew was hoisted to the top of the towering National Menorah in a cherry picker.
For this year’s ceremony, acclaimed cantors Yaacov Motzen, Yaakov Lemmer and Jeffrey Nadel performed.
A tradition dating back to the Carter administration, the annual event at the Ellipse draws thousands of people with its pageantry and religious significance.
The crowd enjoyed a spread of hot latkes and donuts, and received Chanukah menorah lighting kits and dreidels.
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