The renewed Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony drew government ministers and a crowd of parliamentarians led by lower-house Speaker Szymon Hołownia and Senate Speaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Photo: Jakub Szymczuk/KPRP
Photo: X/Sejm RP
Key participants included Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Yacov Livne, Israel's ambassador to Warsaw, and Holocaust survivor Marian Turski.
After the nine Hanukkah candles were relit, Schudrich told the gathering that the ceremony symbolised Polish and Jewish history.
He said that whenever someone tried to "put out our light," Poles and Jews "relit the candles."
Schudrich added that Poles and Jews "can't be put out because we stand together," the PAP news agency reported.
On Tuesday, far-right lawmaker Grzegorz Braun took a fire extinguisher and sprayed powder to put out Hanukkah candles standing in the lobby of the parliament, according to news reports at the time.
The MP with the Confederation party then took to the parliamentary podium where he described the Hanukkah candles as "Satanic" and declared that he was restoring "normality."
Braun was excluded from the Sejm lower-house sitting and received a maximum fine; the Sejm Office later referred him to prosecutors over the incident, the PAP news agency reported.
On Wednesday, the Confederation party suspended Braun from his duties as a member of the parliamentary group and banned him from speaking in the house, reporters were told.
Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, is observed for eight nights and days. This year it began at sunset on Thursday, December 7, and ends on Friday, December 15.
Hanukkah commemorates the 2nd century BCE victory of Judah Maccabee and his followers in a revolt in ancient Judea against the armies of the Seleucid Empire.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, president.pl
Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Michał Owczarek.
