deseo a mis parientes judios una feliz hanucha y que dios lleve a israel por el camino recto el de la Luz

 

How Hanukkah returned to Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall decades after the Holocaust

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ DECEMBER 3, 2020 10:23 AM

Cantors and musicians perform at the annual Hanukkah event at the Royal Concert Hall in Amsterdam, Dec. 22, 2019. (Eduardus Lee)

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AMSTERDAM (JTA) — There’s a huge pipe organ where the Torah ark should be, but otherwise this city’s Royal Concert Hall looks, sounds and feels like a synagogue for one night each year.

That’s because since 2015, this 132-year-old establishment, one of the world’s most prestigious music venues, has hosted an annual cantorial Hanukkah concert. 

A tradition that had been paused for 70 years after the Holocaust, its resumption is helping to unite and revitalize a dwindling and divided community with its glorious past.

The program ranges from traditional numbers like “Maoz Tzur,” a 13th-century poem, to “Al Kol Eleh,” an Israeli hit from 1980. The predominantly Jewish audience sings and claps along — a major faux pas at almost any other concert here — as those unaccustomed to singing in Hebrew struggle to pronounce the words correctly in an evident attempt to connect with their roots.