Amid the bitter cold on Tuesday evening, 100 or so neighbors — many of them clutching tiny cups of hot chocolate, holding dogs on leashes, or chasing after small children — gathered in Harlem’s tiny Montefiore Park to watch the neighborhood’s annual Christmas tree lighting.
But this year, the blue spruce — a landmark at the north end of the triangular park that’s been illuminated for Christmas every year since 1992 — wasn’t the only holiday decoration in the park. For the first time, the Christmas tree lighting was accompanied by the kindling of a large electric menorah, in honor of the third night of Hanukkah.
“We’ve lived in the neighborhood for a long time, and we walk by that park every single day,” said Erica Frankel, who with her husband Rabbi Dimitry Ekshtut is the co-founder of neighborhood Jewish community group Tzibur Harlem, which co-sponsored the lighting. “And we’ve been dreaming that one year there would also be a big public display for Hanukkah in the park alongside the tree.”
Dimitry Ekshtut leads the blessings for the menorah lighting. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
The event arose following an inquiry by the couple to the Montefiore Park Civic Association, asking if they could install a large menorah in the park. Instead of a simple “yes,” a broad coalition of civic, Jewish, Black, Dominican and interfaith organizations came together to create the first “Harlem Festival of Lights,” a cross-denominational celebration of both Christmas and Hanukkah. (A Kwanzaa celebration was initially on the lineup, too, but the lighting of the kinara, the seven-branched candelabra that is part of the modern pan-African holiday, was ultimately rescheduled to coincide with the seven-day celebration that begins on Dec. 26.)
In a year marked by antisemitism, both close to home and afar — most recently on Bondi Beach in Sydney, where 15 people were killed at a public Hanukkah menorah lighting event — the cross-cultural display of holiday cheer felt especially meaningful to many of the participants.
As a sign of the times, however, there was a pronounced police presence in the area.
“What we are doing tonight, in lighting a menorah publicly in the city of New York, in Harlem, with our friends, with our community members, with our elected politicians, with our police officers here, with all of you here, is nothing short than a reclamation of identity, a reclamation of ancestry and a public announcement that we are here,” Ekshtut said during his remarks.
“It has not been an easy Hanukkah,” he added. “Hanukkah is about sharing and spreading light. And we started Hanukkah with darkness. And the answer to darkness is not fear, is not hiding, is not running away. The answer to darkness, my friends, is more light.”
Speakers at the interfaith event included City Councilmember Shaun Abreu; Basia Nikonorow and Michael Palma from the Montefiore Park Neighborhood Association; and Victor Edwards from Community Board 9, which represents the area.
“This is an important time of the year where we realize that more than ourselves, we have each other,” said Abreu, the first Latino to represent Manhattan’s 7th District, whose mother works as a bookkeeper at Zabar’s. “And today is a perfect example of that unity. And let’s bring that unity, that unified spirit, into the new year.”
“This is a community of inclusiveness, and we’re here together to celebrate,” Edwards said during his brief comments. “[With] everything that’s going on in the world, there’s no more [better] time to be close together and support each other.”
The festival’s location is tied to Harlem’s rich Jewish history: The pocket park is named for Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, a Sephardic Jewish financier and philanthropist who funded a sanatorium that opened at West 138th Street and Broadway in 1888. At the time, the neighborhood was an increasingly attractive destination for Jews moving from more crowded locations further south in Manhattan. By 1917, Harlem had more than 175,000 Jewish residents, making it the third-largest Jewish community in the world, behind Warsaw and the Lower East Side.
The neighborhood’s Jewish population largely emptied out during the 20th century, as Harlem became an epicenter of African American life and also drew sizable Puerto Rican and Dominican populations. But the local Jewish community is growing and the neighborhood is now home to some 20,000 Jews who are slightly younger on average than Jews in Manhattan overall, according to a 2023 UJA-Federation study. A Jewish community center and a range of congregations serve the population.
As it happens, the Montefiore Park Neighborhood Association had wanted to host a menorah lighting for several years, according to Palma, but due to COVID, park construction, and organizational turnover with their Jewish institutional connections, something always came up.
“This year, we were determined to do everything on time,” Palma said.
Veronica Savage, co-chair of the Landmarks Preservation and Parks Committee for Community Board 9, said she came to show support “just sort of creating this community moment.”
An Upper West Sider named Justin, who provided only his first name, along with his girlfriend and friend, all regularly attend Tzibur Harlem for Shabbat and other Jewish programming. The trio huddled together for warmth.
“They said they were going to have a giant menorah and I was like, ‘I’ve got to be there,’ so I’m here,” Justin said.
“I believe that it’s even more important to show up now that people try to intimidate Jews and make us go hide,” said Paul, an Upper West Sider who declined to share his last name. “I am a Jewish immigrant from Poland, where some of the worst type of intimidation took place. So I’m extra stubborn and attentive to where people try and push us around like that. So I showed up and we lead with positivity. We lead with good effort.”
After some 20 minutes of speeches, the moment for turning on the holiday lights arrived at last. Frankel brought her two young daughters to the front of the crowd to turn on the electric menorah as Ekshtut led the blessings. Moments later, the children in the crowd were invited to count down from 10 to the lighting of the Christmas tree.
The Hanukkah menorah and Christmas tree are side by side at Montefiore Park. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
At first, the tree didn’t light up. And then — five very long seconds later — it did.
“It wouldn’t be a Harlem tree lighting without a delay,” a voice in the crowd quipped.
Following the lighting, guests were invited to an indoor continuation of the celebration. The crowd followed Palma for a few blocks, and then through a labyrinth of an apartment complex basement to a community room where a buffet of Latin soul food and kosher sufganiyot and latkes had been set up.
The festival of lights continued indoors. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
Once the shivering group was inside, Frankel said the blessings and lit an oil menorah — this time, with matches.
