I suppose we’re no longer surprised by these announcements, that Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador to Israel, lit Chanukah candles at Dizengoff Circle, produced and delivered by Chabad Lubavitch, Tel Aviv.
I suppose if tomorrow we’d see an item in the news that the Queen of England lit Chanukah candles at Trafalgar Square, courtesy of Chabad Lubavitch of London, we won’t even raise an eyebrow. “Hope she’s safe up there, on the cherry picker,” we’d say. We worried to death about her when they made her parachute into that stadium with James Bond last summer.
Ambassador Shapiro was touched – how can you not be, the view from that cherry picker is awesome. But also because he got to light Chanukah candles in Dizengoff Circle, as the Jewish U.S. ambassador to Israel. I’ll bet he was thinking about it in his car all the way back to the embassy in Jerusalem… No, wait, it’s not in Jerusalem, it’s a couple blocks west of Dizengoff, on HaYarkon Street, by the water.
Rabbi Yosef Gerlitzky and Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Levine of Chabad of Tel Aviv were on the cherry picker with Shapiro. He said he’d been to many public menorah lighting events while back in Washington, DC, but this was his first time up on the cherry picker.
See? I think all those world leaders are so happy to comply with the candle lighting thing just for the ride.
I wonder if they invite news hacks to light that menorah…