[B]RATTLEBORO — Stroll downtown and Christmas screams everywhere. So imagine the surprise when, past the 6-foot-tall tree formed of sale jugs of windshield wash, a recent sign on the door of Brown and Roberts Hardware pictured a child hammering home a different holiday.
“Build and paint your own menorah!” the workshop poster promised. “Enjoy donuts, hot cocoa and chocolate Chanukah gelt!”
The Green Mountain State may morph each December into a 5.9 million-acre set for “White Christmas,” but the Jewish holiday of Chanukah is set to shine its own light in the homes of thousands of Vermonters beginning Sunday at dusk.
“No one moves to Vermont to be Jewish, but when you get here you discover you’re interested in meeting up with other Jewish people,” says Susan Leff, executive director of the Burlington-based conduit organization Jewish Communities of Vermont. “This is a way to say, ‘Hey, we’re here.’”
Although the American Jewish Year Book says Vermont followers account for only about 1 percent of the state’s nearly 625,000 people — a rate half the national ratio — Leff says her mailing list suggests the true number of faithful could be as high as 25,000.
“Part of the reason for me starting my organization was people kept telling me there’s no Jewish life in Vermont,” she says. “To say there’s no Jewish life here is crazy.”
All three of the state’s most nationally recognized residents — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and ice cream icons Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield — have Jewish roots. The same can be said for former governors Madeleine Kunin and Peter Shumlin, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger and Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, who’s set to help Gov. Phil Scott light a menorah on the Montpelier Statehouse lawn Monday at 5 p.m.
Vermont has rabbi- and lay-led groups in nearly a dozen locations, including Bennington, Brattleboro, Burlington, Manchester, Middlebury, Montpelier, Rutland, St. Johnsbury, Stowe, the Upper Valley and Woodstock.
In the southeastern hub of Brattleboro, the tradition of displaying an eight-candle menorah is extending from homes to an unusually large number of businesses. Brown and Roberts shoppers browsing stove pipes and space heaters, for example, recently found children making their own candelabrums with the help of adults from Chabad of Southern Vermont.
Rabbi Avremy Raskin told the story of how Jews rose up against religious and cultural oppression by reclaiming a Jerusalem temple during the second century B.C. Doing so, they found only enough oil to light a menorah for one day. Miraculously, it lasted for eight.
“The message of Chanukah is the power of light,” says Raskin, whose grandfather was a rabbi in Casablanca, Morocco, and whose father today leads Chabad in Burlington and at the state level. “We’re living in dark times. Our job is to light the world up with life and love, sharing and caring for others.”
Chabad of Southern Vermont will start with the lighting of a 9-foot-tall menorah in front of the West Brattleboro Fire Station Sunday at 4 p.m. In addition, families from the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community have arranged for several downtown businesses to display their own smaller candelabrums on each of the holiday’s eight nights.
“It’s all about solidarity,” BAJC co-president Laura Berkowitz says. “Shining a light for social justice, the challenges all marginalized people face, and a deep desire to be a visible force for tolerance and peace.”
The 5:15 p.m. downtown Brattleboro events will include a Sunday focus on women’s equality at Elliot Street Fish & Chips, a Monday focus on stopping anti-Semitism at Twin Flames Taqueria, a Tuesday focus on stemming addiction at Twice Upon a Time, a Wednesday focus on ending homelessness at Altiplano, a Thursday focus on religious freedom at Beadniks, a Dec. 7 focus on immigrants at Gallery in the Woods, a Dec. 8 focus on racial justice at Burrows Specialized Sports and a Dec. 9 focus on LGBTQ issues at Centre Congregational Church.
The menorah lightings come five weeks after an Oct. 27 mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue sparked vigils state and nationwide.
“We saw how many communities stood with the Jews against hatred and divisiveness,” Berkowitz says. “It has become so pressing and important right now for us to be standing with others.”
