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Lighting Up Cars for Hanukkah

December 26, 2008 8:44 AM

ABC News On Campus reporter Joshua Zuber blogs:

Whether it's decorating a Christmas tree, or lighting a candle on the menorah, most of us have our traditions around the holiday season.

But in the Squirrel Hill community of Pittsburgh, there's what some might call an unusual tradition: putting a menorah on top of the car during Hanukkah.

Hundreds of people do it every year, Rabbi Yisroel Altein said. He is the outreach director of Chabad of Pittsburgh, a Jewish community center. People do it for two reasons, Altein said:  to spread awareness of the Jewish holiday  and to illuminate a message of goodness and kindness.

The rabbi said the tradition has been going on in the Pittsburgh area since the mid-to-late 1980s, and that it started in Brooklyn, N.Y.  The idea spread quickly, he said, all over the world. This year, the tradition is called  Unite the Lights,   in memory of those killed in the terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Some members of the Chabad international organization lost their lives during those attacks.

"It makes me excited and gives me a warm feeling in this cold season,"  Altein said. For the past five years, the center has launched the event  with a parade and lighting a candle of a public menorah.

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