An icy menora warms a Hanukka celebration at Flanders Crossing

by Cheryl Conway
Special to NJ Jewish News

After a first-time communitywide Hanukka celebration in Flanders attended by local officials, including the town’s mayor, a grand ice menora crashed to the ground while being relocated to a rabbi’s house.

The shattering of the four-foot-high ice menora following the two-hour celebration Tuesday night, Dec. 27, in the parking lot of the Flanders Crossing Recreation Center, however, failed to break the holiday spirit.

Although disappointed that the beautifully sculpted candelabrum had broken, Rabbi Yaacov Shusterman said the menora “served its purpose.”

“I was very upset,” said Shusterman, event host and director of the Chabad Jewish Center in Flanders. But “the ice menora attracted most of the crowd; most of the people came for that. It achieved its goal.”

Besides, with the 49-degree weather the next day and the rain that followed, the ice menora en route to Shusterman’s yard would have melted as fast as Frosty the Snowman.

More than 85 people from Mount Olive and the surrounding area gathered at the private clubhouse on the third night of Hanukka from 5:30 to 7 p.m. to watch the carving of the menora, sing holiday prayers, eat latkes and jelly donuts, and dance to music played by the Spinning Tops, a three-man band from the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown. Children gathered around tables to decorate wooden dreidels, create wooden menoras, and work with sand art to adorn paper menoras.

Mayor Richard De La Roche of Mount Olive lit the shamash candle and expressed his gratitude in being invited to the event, the first of its kind in the 30 years he has lived in the township.

“We’re all part of one community, and we all get along very well,” said De La Roche. “The more we reach out for each other, the better we will be.”

Shusterman moved to Flanders with his family one year ago to establish and run the new Chabad center. His goal, he said, is to build a stronger, united Jewish presence in Mount Olive and Washington Townships and throughout Warren County. He hosted the Hanukka event to publicize “the miracles” of the Jewish celebration and encourage Jewish children and adults to feel proud of their heritage.

His aim was “to promote the holiday among the children, especially those who feel left out, so they can feel proud of being Jewish. Adults should also feel proud of who they are,” he said.

Shusterman also wanted to raise awareness of the Festival of Lights.

Neil Trimper, owner of Trimps Ice Art in Branchville, spent about 90 minutes carving the detailed menora out of two blocks of ice.

He thought the menora was going to stay at the recreation center until the rabbi requested at the celebration’s end that it be relocated to his property.

The menora was “a little big to reload that kind of thing,” said Trimper. “I didn’t have the right truck; it just slipped off the dolly.”

Still, the menora lit up the night for those who attended.

“It was a community event that doesn’t happen so often here,” said Shusterman. “Living outside of Livingston and West Orange…this was an opportunity to meet more Jewish people, especially those who are unaffiliated.”

Brian Schaechter, a member of Temple Shalom in Succasunna and president of the Flanders Crossing Community Association, agreed. “It was a wonderful event. It’s nice to see the whole community getting together.”

Cheryl Conway is a freelance writer in Flanders.

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