{"id":448007,"date":"2025-12-15T05:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/448007\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:32:11","slug":"at-hanukkah-celebration-in-philadelphia-attendees-vow-to-stay-resilient-after-australia-mass-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/448007\/","title":{"rendered":"At Hanukkah celebration in Philadelphia, attendees vow to stay &#8220;resilient&#8221; after Australia mass shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dozens gathered outside the Betsy Ross House in Old City for a prayer service and religious celebration on the first night of Hanukkah, hours after a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/australia-bondi-beach-shooting-jewish-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">mass shooting in Australia at a Jewish party<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At this point, we have to keep building, we have to keep doing, we have to keep bringing light into this world. It&#8217;s not time to do anything less than that,&#8221; Rabbi Menachem Schmidt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia Police used marked and plainclothes officers to secure the area, blocking off a portion of Arch Street before and during the lighting of the Menorah.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Especially being in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, you know William Penn, where freedom of religion was so important, and so it&#8217;s really important today to be able to celebrate Hanukkah,&#8221; Philadelphia City Councilmember Mark Squilla said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite a heavy police presence, those who gathered at the event said they remain undeterred in celebrating their faith.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really, really sad, but I think the only thing you can do is focus on the positive and bring more positivity and light into the world, which is the message of Hanukkah,&#8221; Daniel Meadvin said.<\/p>\n<p>Matt Siegel, who helps lead the Jewish Community Group &#8220;Shtick Together PHL,&#8221; is already planning a fundraising party for Thursday as part of the Hanukkah festival. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This community is resilient,&#8221; he said, &#8220;Every time, it seems like every month there&#8217;s something negative that&#8217;s happening and we always show up and we always come together. That&#8217;s why I love being Jewish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Attendees said they&#8217;re stronger united \u2014 rooted in hope for a future that&#8217;s bright. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens gathered outside the Betsy Ross House in Old City for a prayer service and religious celebration on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":448008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,182109,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-448007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-hanukkah","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115721951237562172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}