This year's Hanukkah festival in downtown Riverside will be dedicated to the victims of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Chabad Jewish Community Center in Riverside plans to hold its annual Hanukkah festival Dec. 21, on the first day of the eight-day Jewish holiday. The directors of the Chabad center in Mumbai, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivkah Holtzberg, were murdered in the attacks.
Rabbi Shmuel Fuss, of Chabad in Riverside, was a friend of the couple and had known Gavriel Holtzberg since the two grew up in Brooklyn.
The festival is set to begin at 3 p.m. outside the Riverside Historic Courthouse, 4050 Main St. Speeches and a menorah-lighting begin at 4:45 p.m.
The keynote speaker will be Jacob Dayan, consul general of Israel in Los Angeles. The guests of honor include Leon Leyson, a Holocaust survivor who worked at the Oskar Schindler factory made famous by the film "Schindler's List," U.S. Rep. Joe Baca (D-Rialto) and State Controller John Chiang. Fuss said he also is inviting members of the Inland area's Indian community to attend.
For more information, call Chabad at 951-222-2005 or go to www.JewishRiverside.com.
--David Olson