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To Life !

HOLiDAY

Michelle Friedman

Appel •lights the giant

Lego menorah. Judi* Ma

Goldsmith later lit the res

of the candles and

recited the blessings.

Festive Fun!

A

Shelli Liebman Dorfman

Staff Writer

A Hypnotic Chanukah

Hosting a 120-guest Chanukah party is an impressive accomplishment for the barely 1-
year-old Jewish Learning Center of Huntington Woods. "Last year's was smaller and was
held in our home," said Tamar Hadar, who organized the event with her husband, Rabbi
Chanoch Hadar, director of the learning center.
Moving this year's event to the Huntington Woods Recreation Center not only allowed
for more people, but also for bigger — and taller — events.
A highlight of the Dec. 17 party was the lighting of a 6-foot-high Lego menorah con-
structed by guests, piece by piece. "Together, we all lit the menorah, sang songs, heard
the Chanukah story and shared a kosher Chinese buffet cooked by Chef Cari," Hadar
said. "After that we split up: children in one room for Chanukah activities like making
their very own oil with our ancient oil press, testing their speed in a doughnut race,
playing a chocolate dreidel game and creating a marshmallow menorah!'
The adults included State Sen. Gilda Jacobs, D-Huntington Woods, Oakland
County Commissioner Helaine Zack, D-Huntington Woods, Oak Park District Court
Judge Michelle Friedman Appel, Oakland County Circuit Judge Mark Goldsmith and
Huntington Woods Mayor Ronald E Gillham, For them, it was a "hypnotic" Chanukah
party, with a hypnotist who succeeded in hypnotizing part of the crowd, Hadar said. Eli

Miles Of Lights

The Detroit Tigers limo

What began with a traditional, indoor Chanukah candlelighting became a spectacu-
lar showing of menorahs, placed atop cars and trucks, and paraded from the Jewish
Community Center in Oak Park to a shopping center in West Bloomfield.
Following a Dec. 17 latke- and music-filled party, the row of 60 menorah-laden
vehicles lit up the streets of at least half a dozen suburban cities, culminating with
outdoor singing and dancing in a parking lot at the end of the route.
With the sixth annual Chabad-sponsored "menorahcade" growing this year, orga-
nizer Levi Gottlieb, 22, of Oak Park said, "We had 35 brand new aluminum menorahs
hand-built by the students of Yeshivas Lubavitch School (in Oak Park). Also new this
year, we had six limousines, including the famous [Detroit] Tigers limousine and an
antique limo," he said.
"I've never seen so many bystanders as I did this year:' Gottlieb added. "There were
crowds gathered at corners, even in this cold weather. We had a pickup truck leading
the parade with a 6-foot-high menorah and booming Chanukah music. During the
parade, I kept getting calls from people wanting to know exactly where we were in
our route."

Good Times. Downtown

Chanukah at the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue warrants a double celebration: one
for the holiday and another to commemorate the founding of the Detroit synagogue.
"On the third day of Chanukah, 85 years ago, the synagogue was established," said
board member Edward Rapoport of Southfield. "Now every year on the holiday, we have
our annual congregational meeting and then we light the menorah, eat latkes, blintzes
and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), hear music, dance and spin the dreidel."
The diverse membership — who hold regular Shabbat and holiday services as well
as educational and social programming — live far from and near the synagogue, with
party guests of the Dec. 16 event coming from as far as Novi, West Bloomfield and
Farmington Hills. "Our president Lou Antonino (who is Jewish) brought his relatives,
who are not Jewish to their very first Chanukah party ever," Rapoport said.

Left: Three generations of party guests: Claire and Leo Raminick of Southfield

celebrate with their granddaughter Kourtney Spaulding and her mom,

Shelley, both of Farmington Hills.

December 28 2006

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