Menorah Lighting on Payrow Plaza for Chanukah

Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan will light the first candle on a Menorah on Payrow Plaza as Chabad of the Lehigh Valley helps the city to commemorate the first night of Chanukah.

Mendy Halperin of Chabad, a spiritual, educational and social organization based in South Whitehall Township, will provide the music. Festivities are scheduled to get under way at about 4:30 p.m.—rain or shine.

Chanukah is the eight-day festival of light that begins on the eve of the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev.

The holiday celebrates two miracles in Jewish history:

• The victory of a small, greatly outnumbered and out-armed army of Jews, known as the “Maccabees,” over the mighty Greek army that occupied the Holy Land.

• When the Maccabees liberated the Temple from the Greeks, they found only a small cruse of pure and undefiled olive oil fit for fueling the Menorah, which was an important part of daily services at the Temple. The problem was, it was sufficient to light the Menorah only for one day, and it would take eight days to produce new pure oil. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days and nights.

Chanukah customs include eating foods fried in oil—such as potato pancakes and doughnuts, playing with a dreidel—a type of spinning top, and giving gifts of money to children.