Neighbors

Posted Tuesday, January 3, 2012 1:58 pm

With 782 menorahs burning brightly on Dec. 21, the Merrick-Bellmore community made history at the Merrick Jewish Centre.

More than 1,000 community members from throughout the Merricks, Bellmores and beyond joined together at the synagogue, on Fox Boulevard in Merrick, to set the Guinness World Record for the greatest number of menorahs lit simultaneously.

"It was an incredibly successful event and a very powerful event at the same time,” said Rabbi Charles Klein, the synagogue’s spiritual leader.

The previous record was 358 menorahs, set in Moscow in 2009, according to Klein.

The rabbi said that he got the idea to set the record only three weeks before Hanukkah. The synagogue undertook a vigorous campaign to promote the event, and word quickly spread throughout the community. "We pulled it together very, very quickly,” he said.

Klein added that he wanted to put a new twist on age-old customs during Hanukkah, the eight-day celebration that commemorates the Jewish victory over the Syrian-Greeks in 165 B.C.E. A candle on the menorah is lit for each of the holiday’s eight days. "I'm always looking for ways in which I can excite and interest people to participate in Jewish tradition and Jewish life,” Klein said.

"It's a new way of doing something old,” he continued. “That's what this was all about."

At 7 p.m., community members gathered at the synagogue, menorahs in hand. At 7:20 p.m., after prayers were recited, it was time to light the menorahs. "Looking out, it was a sea of menorahs and candles and people,” Klein said. “It was a very beautiful sight to see. It was a very unique situation. It exceeded anything I really thought was possible.”

In addition to setting the Guinness record, the event also brought a sense of community spirit, said Tammy Kornfeld, of Merrick. “It was exciting to be part of something bigger than ourselves,” said Kornfeld, who attended the event with her husband, Marty Pasternak, and her daughter, Jenna Pasternak. “When you looked around, you saw a lot of excited, happy people, and it felt great to be there with them."

June Goldhamer, a Freeport native who belongs to the Merrick Jewish Centre, said, "It was just so extraordinary, and I still have goose bumps thinking about it. The feeling of family within the room was unspeakable."

To make the record-breaking event official, Klein said the synagogue had to file an “enormous amount of paperwork,” both before and after the event, and provided Guinness officials with photos, videos and testimony from outside witnesses.

Although Klein said he knows that the record may not stand forever, and that it may even be broken next Hanukkah, he is proud that the Merrick Jewish Centre will have a place in history.

"It's a wonderful, wonderful thing for the town,” he said. “And I think the community is very excited about having some connection to an event like this."