SPRING LAKE — Spring Lake celebrated its first public menorah lighting event on Sunday night, with equal parts humility and pride regarding the addition of the Hanukkah observation to the borough’s official end-of-year events.
The celebration, at Fifth and Passaic Avenues next to Veterans Park, was led by Mayor Jennifer Naughton and Borough Administrator W. Bryan Dempsey, who welcomed the interfaith crowd that turned out. Eighty to a hundred people, including adults and children, showed up.
“I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you are here,” Mayor Naughton told the gathering. “Sometimes these events start small — five, fifty, a hundred. So, I speak on behalf of the whole council, to say how grateful we are that you’re here and we’d like to make this an annual event from now on.”
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Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, includes the lighting of candles or “the miracle of the oil” lamp that lasted for eight days instead of a single day. Hanukkah means “dedication” and recounts the Jews’ effort to uphold their heritage when they rose up against their oppressors in the Maccabean Revolt.
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