Special to the Reporter

Chabad Mercer Island will light a six-foot Lego Hanukkah menorah at Mercerdale Park on Dec. 19, the second night of the eight-day Festival of Lights.

The event, which begins at 5:15 p.m., will feature a spectacular LED show and traditional Hanukkah treats. Complimentary Hanukkah menorahs and candles will be distributed, as well, for participants to light at home or bring along with them on vacation.

“Everyone is especially excited about Hanukkah this year,” said Rabbi Nissan Kornfeld, director of Chabad Mercer Island. “People are preparing to celebrate with family and friends, to fill their homes with the light of Hanukkah, and there’s a palpable joy. The public Hanukkah celebration is about sharing this light and joy with the broader community and the entire Mercer Island.”

For more information and to RSVP for the event, which is open to all and free of charge, visit chabadmercerisland.org/menorah.

This year’s Hanukkah campaign comes amid a growing awareness of Chabad-Lubavitch’s indelible impact on Jewish life. Pew Research Center’s 2020 survey of Jewish Americans showed that 38 percent of all American Jews have participated in Chabad activities and services, of whom more than 75 percent do not identify as Orthodox.

Throughout the state of Washington, Chabad will be presenting dozens of Hanukkah events and celebrations.

Hanukkah emphasizes that each and every individual has the unique power to illuminate the entire world. It was to encourage this profound idea that the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, launched the Hanukkah awareness campaign in 1973, of which Mercer Island’s public Hanukkah activities are a part of. The menorah faces the street, the Rebbe notes, and so bypassers immediately feel “the effect of the light, which illuminates the outside and the environment.”

Chabad Mercer Island offers Jewish education, outreach and social service programming for families and individuals of all ages, backgrounds and affiliations.