King of Bahrain Hosts Hanukkah Candlelighting
(JTA) — The kingdom of Bahrain hosted a candlelighting ceremony for Hanukkah, which led to a video of local men wearing kaffiyehs and Orthodox Jews dancing together.
The Muslim monarchy of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa held a candle lighting ceremony on Saturday night attended by the local Jewish community, area businessmen and other local Bahrainis. The Hasidic dancing was captured on video and posted on YouTube.
Last year was the first time that the king of Bahrain marked Hanukkah.
The Hamas terror group issued a statement railing against the ceremony calling the dancing of Jews and Muslims together a “disgraceful spectacle.”
Hamas called on Bahrain to “fully stop any form of normalization with the Zionist enemy.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued an official Hanukkah message to the country’s Jewish community.
“My best wishes for the Hanukkah festival of all Jews, especially the inseparable part of our society’s Jewish citizens, with whom we have co-existed peacefully for centuries, and I wish them peace,” said the message.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across country
-
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.