Hanukkah Rite Is a Spanish Milestone

For the first time in more than five centuries, the Jewish community of Spain has held a public celebration of Hanukkah.

Members of the small community lighted candles Sunday at the same location in Girona, Spain, where their ancestors sought protection in 1391 from anti-Semitic violence that was prevalent at the time. Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.

“This is an emotional and unforgettable day,” Mayor Joaquim Nadal told the gathering outside the ruins of Gironella Tower.

The candle-lighting ritual on the eighth and last day of Hanukkah drew close to 1,000 people, including many non-Jews.

The ceremony was led by Eliahu Bakshi Doron, Israel’s chief rabbi of Sephardic Jews, who trace their ancestry to Spain.

“It moves me to be standing at this spot,” he said, adding that the lighting of the candles in the 15-foot-tall menorah symbolized “peace and love in a world of war and tragedy.”

The celebration was the latest example of recently established religious tolerance in Spain. In 1978, the government’s constitution reestablished freedom of worship, and 1992 laws placed Protestantism, Islam and Judaism on equal footing with the country’s predominant Roman Catholicism.