File photo The Temple Shalom menorah light display once again shines for the Hanukkah season.

It is a coincidence this year that the start of Hanukkah falls on the evening of Christmas Day, but Rabbi Joshua Lief of Temple Shalom considers it a fortuitous coincidence.

For one, he said, it shines a little more of a spotlight on the Jewish holiday during one of the major holidays of the Christian faith. And the message of Hanukkah, he added, is especially appropriate this time of year.

Hanukkah celebrates the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucids. In 167 B.C., the Seleucids, a Syrian-Greek empire, outlawed Judaism and demanded Jews adopt Greek culture. Three years later, the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid monarchy was successful and the Second Temple in Jerusalem was rededicated.

“They fought back for their freedom not to compel the Greeks to become Jews,” Lief said, “but just for the right to keep being themselves and so, to live in a world that is overwhelmingly Christian.

“It’s a wonderful reminder that the existence of minorities is not a threat to the continued existence of the majority,” he continued.

Lief said that the Jewish community’s fight for the right to be themselves continues to this day in the Middle East, where conflict continues against Hezbollah and Hamas. Even though the Hanukkah narrative took place 2,000 years ago, he said the need for all of society to defend the minority continues to the present day.

“I think that we are judged as people, not on whether we do well for ourselves, our friends and our family,” he said, “but equally so if not more so, on whether we’re kind and gracious and supportive and defensive of those who are the stranger, those who are different than us and whether we treat them with kindness and respect.”

Starting this evening, Temple Shalom will hold celebrations honoring the eight days of Hanukkah and its overall message of bringing light to the darkness. The synagogue’s “Shalom” menorah light display will shine from in front of Temple Shalom as a welcome to those driving to Oglebay Park’s Festival of Lights. There will be a Hanukkah celebration and dinner starting at 6 p.m. Friday at Temple Shalom.

There will be a special service with music and other festivities Friday, as congregants all will light their menorahs together. The dinner will follow.

While Lief said there are holidays on the Jewish calendar that carry more theological significance than Hanukkah, like Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, the message of Hanukkah has become very significant in the present day. And as the center of the Jewish faith in the Ohio Valley, Temple Shalom is proud to be the gathering place for the region’s Jewish community to celebrate the season.

“We live as a tiny minority amid the vast sea of majority who are not us,” he said. “This is a time of year where we can feel a particular sense of pride in who we are, even as a small group, and also wish our friends and neighbors a very meaningful and happy holiday for their celebration as well.”