Overview
- The eight‑day festival of Hanukkah begins the evening of December 14, marked by nightly candle lighting on a nine‑branch hanukkiyah.
- Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar will not conduct the customary central‑Moscow lighting after the mayor’s office declined to authorize the public ceremony for security reasons.
- The Moscow Jewish Community Center said a new date for a public lighting would be announced separately.
- Public menorah lightings in Moscow have been held annually since the early 1990s and are contingent on municipal permits.
- Community leaders, including Lazar, Alexander Boroda and Herman Zakharyaev, issued holiday messages stressing moral choice and dignity, as coverage also highlighted traditional foods such as latkes and sufganiyot.