Multitudes at Sherman Oaks Mall See Lighting of Menorah
- Share via
An estimated 8,000 people gathered on three floors to watch the lighting of a 25-foot-high menorah at the Sherman Oaks Galleria Sunday, the third night of Hanukkah.
Actor Stephen Furst, of the television show “St. Elsewhere,” and Phillip Glasser, 10, who is the voice of Fievel Mousekowitz in the animated movie “An American Tail,” rode a mechanical lift for the menorah-lighting ceremony, which was sponsored by the Chabad of the Valley, a Jewish educational group.
Those on the ground got a chance to eat the traditional Hanukkah food of potato latkes--there were 4,000 of them--and dance to Israeli folk music.
Celebrating a 2,000-year-old Jewish holiday inside one of the San Fernando Valley’s most modern settings was fitting, Chabad Rabbi Menachem Bryski said: “Judaism is also contemporary; it has a message for every generation.”
Nikki Gluck, 18, of North Hollywood, there with a friend, said, “I don’t usually go to the mall to celebrate Hanukkah, but this is pretty fun.”
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
