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Parade celebrates Hanukkah with menorahs atop cars

Parade-goers celebrated the fifth night of the eight-day Jewish holiday. Phillies manager Gabe Kapler participated.

Rabbi Abraham Shemtov leads a parade of menorah-topped cars from Benjamin Franklin Parkway to Independence National Park. The event was held to celebrate the fifth night of Hanukkah.
Rabbi Abraham Shemtov leads a parade of menorah-topped cars from Benjamin Franklin Parkway to Independence National Park. The event was held to celebrate the fifth night of Hanukkah.Read moreELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer
    by Tom Avril
    Published 

In celebration of the fifth night of Hanukkah, more than 150 cars topped with menorahs paraded from Benjamin Franklin Parkway to Independence National Park.

At the end of the parade, Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Abraham Shemtov was joined by new Phillies manager Gabe Kapler in lighting a giant menorah.

Philadelphia is believed to have been the site of the first public menorah lighting more than 40 years ago. Now such celebrations are common, taking place in thousands of locations around the world.

"This started the whole tradition of public menorah lighting," said Shemtov's son, Rabbi Yehuda Shemtov.