In the youth project of the Dnipro Jewish Community, “DJCY-STL-STARS Dnipro,” implemented with the support of STL and also affectionately called Stars Dnipro, a special, bright, and touching event took place on the final evening of the eighth candle of the Hanukkah holiday.
At the beginning, the students summarized the Hanukkah week, as each evening they had participated in the Dnipro Jewish Community’s “Mivtzoim Hanukkah-5786” campaign for spreading the Hanukkah light – visiting elderly Jews, helping them light the Hanukkiah, telling them about the history and meanings of the holiday, teaching them how to play dreidel, and treating them to doughnuts. Additionally, participants of the “DJCY-STL-STARS Dnipro” project worked at Mivtza-posts near the Hanukkiahs in the “Passage,” “Kaskad-Plaza,” and “Most-City” shopping centers and, of course, actively helped organize and conduct the community’s events in the “Menorah” center and on Heroes of the Maidan Square.
Photos from their participation in “Mivtzoim Hanukkah-5786” were edited into a video of the Rebbe, which was shown at the meeting concluding Hanukkah to visually demonstrate how the Rebbe’s ideas live and continue today through our youth. After this, a special interactive Hanukkah quiz took place, the winners of which received substantial Chanukah gelt.
The culmination of the evening in honor of Hanukkah’s conclusion was the exchange of secret gifts, where no one knew what they would receive, but everyone went home with a Hanukkah gift and a smile. It was very fun, heartfelt, and truly warm, as Hanukkah is about the light we kindle together.
“One can say with full confidence that the holiday of warmth, light, and genuine friendship among students was held to a very high standard,” says the head of the “DJCY-STL-STARS Dnipro” project, Chaya Maltseva. “The Hanukkah marathon played an important role in what our project is meant to do throughout the entire year. Especially in winter, under conditions of power outages and cold, this warmth, the ability to find and generate the best within oneself and share it with one’s surroundings, becomes truly important. In this sense, the holiday took place and gave the young men and women strength to continue their studies. Sincere thanks to our leaders, our ‘little stars’ Leah Lazareva and Eliyahu Ivakhnenko, who energize everyone and set an example. The youth created this holiday for themselves, and that is extremely important, as it wasn’t something someone invented for the youth – they organized it the way they felt and imagined it, of course, with the support of the united and cohesive Dnipro Jewish Kehillah under the leadership of its Rav, Shmuel Kaminezki.”
