LIGHTING UP GREATER PHILADELPHIA
H A N U K K A H 2 0 2 2 C E L E B R A T I O N R E C A P
From candle lighting and prayer to concerts and laser light shows, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
ensured a memorable Hanukkah for all. Throughout the holiday, the Jewish Federation’s various departments,
including the neighborhood Kehillot, NextGen and the Jewish Community Relations Council, hosted a number
of events to bring the community together and celebrate the Festival of Lights.

“It was deeply moving to see how people of all different demographics and backgrounds turned out - in frigid
temperatures, no less - to support one another and the community as a whole,” said Max Moline, the Jewish
Federation’s director of Community Development. “Collectively,
Collectively, the Greater Philadelphia Jewish community
showed once again that we are all committed to igniting and carrying the light.”
Overall, more than 1,000 community members participated in the Hanukkah programs hosted by the Kehillot, a
neighborhood initiative of the Jewish Federation to create vibrant communities throughout Greater Philadelphia.

On December 17, the Old York Road Kehillah hosted a
Hanukkah laser light show. Nearly 460 people came out
to see the dazzling show,presented by Wondergy, at
Congregation Beth Sholom.

The Buxmont Kehillah hosted an event at the Horsham
Center for Jewish Life on December 18, where around 150
community members and residents celebrated the first
night of Hanukkah with singing, stories and candle lighting.

The children’s choir of Darchei Noam synagogue, along
with Hazzan Arlyne Unger, gave a special performance of
Jewish and Hanukkah themed songs. Mary, Mother of the
Redeemer Catholic School basketball team also attended
and handed out goody bags at the end of the program.

More than 160 people welcomed the second night of
Hanukkah with the Bucks County Kehillah at Shady
Brook Farm on December 19. The evening was filled with
crafts, candle lighting, music and donuts.

The Lower Merion Kehillah brought in Hanukkah at
the Narberth train station on December 19. Around 50
people gathered to celebrate with blessings, songs,
sufganiyot (jelly donuts).

The Center City Kehillah commemorated the third night
of Hanukkah with a joyous and meaningful candle lighting
at Rittenhouse Square Park. The event brought out
more than 100 people on December 20. After the candle
lighting, the Jewish Federation’s NextGen and other
young professional groups met for drinks at Misconduct.

On December 21, the Northeast Kehillah hosted an
event at House of Kosher with over 125 members of the
community. Participants enjoyed an evening of candle
lighting, latkes, donuts and live music by Ken Ulansey.

See the full roundup at jewishphilly.org/celebrate. Want to get involved
in Jewish life within your community? Contact Director of Community
Development Max Moline at mmoline@jewishphilly.org
10 JANUARY 12, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT



YOU SHOULD KNOW ...

Jennifer Anolik
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
Courtesy of Moving Traditions
J ewish teens today are going through a lot, Jennifer Anolik,
fellowship director for Kol Koleinu at Moving Traditions, an Elkins
Park-based nonprofit instilling feminist and Jewish values in young
people, has observed.

Students are navigating a pandemic, schoolwork and sometimes an
additional job, Anolik learned. They are concerned with environmental
justice, reproductive rights, rising antisemitism and whether they or a
loved one will be a victim of a hate crime because of their gender, sexual-
ity, race or religion.

As fellowship director of Kol Koleinu, a yearlong, nationwide program
for Jewish teens, particularly women and nonbinary teens, interested in
feminist change-making, Anolik helps the fellows navigate and address
these issues through the lens of Moving Traditions’ values of sheimut,
personal well being; hesed, caring relationships; and tzedek, justice.

By the end of the year, Kol Koleinu fellows design a project to address
an issue they deem important.

“We teach them transferable skills,” Anolik said. “The experience of
creating a social change project that’s
part of the fellowship is both an experi-
ence where they get to make change in
their communities, but also where they
get to reflect on that experience, and
build skills like partnership: How do we
work together to create change? They
also build skills of self-care: How do I
take care of myself?”
Kol Koleinu also builds critical thinking
skills and encourages fellows to think
about community support.

As a Moving Traditions leader for
more than seven years and Kol Koleinu
fellowship director since 2019, Anolik,
a Northern Liberties resident, has done
more than guide the next generation of
impact-making Jews. The 34-year-old
has also experienced her transforma-
tion as a Jewish feminist, learning from
the teens she’s guided over the years
about the “sacredness of community,”
self-advocacy and the Jewish value of
disagreement. “[I’m] incredibly honored to be able to
help teens be able to build those skills so
much earlier in life than I did,” she said.

Before leading the Kol Koleinu fellow-
ship, Anolik rebooted and led Moving
Traditions’ Rosh Hodesh program for
eighth-10th graders — a small groups
mentorship program focused on “helping
teens build social and emotional skills,
cultivate healthy relationships and build
within a Jewish community,” Anolik
described. She has continued to lead her
Rosh Hodesh group in the Philadelphia
suburbs for about six years.

Over time, Moving Traditions wanted
to enact programs with a greater social
change component. Other organiza-
tions, such as NFTY: The Reform Jewish
Youth Movement, had Kol Isha, a group
program that looked at Jewish values
and issues through the lens of gender
and feminism. Moving Traditions, in
collaboration with Union for Reform
Judaism and United Synagogue Youth,
created Kol Koleinu to fulfill a similar
purpose in 2018. Anolik stepped in as
fellowship director a year later.

Before joining Moving Traditions,
Anolik received her bachelor’s
degree from Dickinson College and a
master’s degree from the University
of Pennsylvania Graduate School of
Education. Though Anolik views her
Jewish upbringing as different from
that of today’s teens, her connection to
her paternal grandmother, a Holocaust
survivor, is largely what inspired her to
work with young Jews.

Born in what was then Czechoslovakia,
Erna Anolik grew up in a large family and
right before graduating high school in
1944, was sent to a lumberyard, where
Nazis kept the town’s Jewish popula-
tion for several weeks until they were
deported to Auschwitz. By luck, Erna
and one of her sisters were sent with
600 other Jewish women to a concen-
tration camp in Essen, Germany, where
they were forced laborers.

The sisters helped each other survive
the cold and treacherous conditions and,
with the help of a German gentile in a
nearby town, were able to escape during
a bombing raid and hide at a cemetery
three miles away, before staying with the
man who helped rescue them. The rest
of their family died in the Shoah.

Erna later testified in the Nuremberg
Trials — in English — at age 21.

“I think about her journey often. I think
about how she taught me about resil-
ience, and how resilience is an incred-
ible mindset that I want to impart to
the teens that I work with,” Anolik said.

“Even though she faced tremendous
hardship, it was possible for her to build
a life of joy and meaning and for her to
be connected so deeply with Judaism.”
Anolik’s goal at Moving Traditions is
to meditate on and address what “never
again” really means.

Beyond sharing the stories of survi-
vors, “never again” means fostering
Jewish pride, standing up against all
forms of discrimination and building
coalitions with groups outside of the
Jewish community — skills that Moving
Traditions helps to instill.

“We can choose to learn from our own
hard experiences and to learn from the
experience of our ancestors in order to
make ourselves stronger,” Anolik said. ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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