Morris Plains Menorah Lighting Highlights Week Ahead

The public menorah lighting that celebrates Hanukkah in Morris Plains returns to town Saturday on the Merchant Block at 7:30 p.m.

What makes this event somewhat unique is it is happening over the long Thanksgiving weekend as a confluence of calendar have made both holidays overlap.

But it isn’t unprecedented.

According to Rabbi Dovid Labkowski, Hanukkah was declared a Jewish national holiday 2178 years ago. Thanksgiving was declared a national American holiday on the last Thursday of every November by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Before then, Thanksgiving was celebrated on different dates in different states, so we won’t count those.

“But, using the Chabad.org Date Converter, you will see that Thanksgiving coincided with the first day of Chanukah on Nov. 29, 1888,” Labkowski said. “ It also coincided with the fifth day of Chanukah on Nov. 30, 1899.”

On Nov. 28, 1918, Thanksgiving was on Hanukkah eve. But since it’s still Thanksgiving until midnight, and Jewish days begin at night, that would still mean that Jewish Americans would have eaten their turkeys that Thanksgiving to the light of their first Chanukah candle, Labkowski said.

Regardless of the rarity, Morris Plains residents will get to conclude their public ceremony of celebration for Hanukkah Saturday night.