The message from Rabbi Nechemia Schusterman, of Chabad of Peabody, could not have been clearer at the city’s annual Menorah Lighting on Tuesday afternoon — light will always defeat darkness — rhetoric particularly resonant given growing antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Schusterman joined Mayor Ted Bettencourt, state Rep. Tom Walsh, and other elected officials, along with a small group of residents, outside City Hall to get a jump on the sixth night of Hanukkah on a blustery afternoon. The Jewish holiday, which commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C.E., after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying foreign forces, began on Dec. 7 and concludes on Dec. 14.
Menorah lightings in Peabody date back two decades, Schusterman said, to at least the tenure of Mayor Michael Bonfanti, Bettencourt’s predecessor.
During brief remarks to open the ceremony, Bettencourt said the event allowed the city to stand together with its Jewish community.
“It’s wonderful to be able to continue and have all of you here,” Bettencourt told the assembled crowd. “It’s an important tradition that we look to continue to celebrate Hanukkah, but even more importantly in the world today, even more so to be here today.”
Schusterman, in his own remarks, thanked Peabody for being “such a warm and embracing and a loving city,” prompting applause from the crowd.
“If we continue to stand loudly and proudly and shine the light of Judaism, then we will all be safe because a little light dispels a lot of darkness,” he said. “We are all in pain because of the recent savage attacks on our people, and we feel the pain of those who are being unintentionally hurt as a result of the acts of the coward terrorists.”
“Innocent people should not have to face that kind of pain,” Schusterman added.
Schusterman urged Jews not to lose faith, and instead redouble their efforts to ensure that light indeed expels darkness.
“We continue to have faith in our creator and commit even more to our mission,” he said.
