Hanukkah Embraces "Spirit of Religious Freedom"

December 10, 2001

Source: The Washington Post

On December 10, 2001, The Washington Post reported that "the traditional program of Hanukah songs was expanded to include 'God Bless America' and Oseh Shalom, the Jewish prayer for peace... Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who rode a cherry-picker into the air to light the 30-foot-high candelabra, called it 'a symbol of hope against violence and oppression'... In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the recent suicide bombings that killed more than two dozen civilians in Israel, the annual lighting of the National Menorah yesterday evening took on an unusually somber tone."