Georgian leaders celebrate Hanukkah with local Jews

Jewish people in Georgia and across the world are celebrating Hanukkah, an eight-day festival of lights.

Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili celebrated the Jewish holiday with Georgian Jews and lit the first candle at the Tbilisi Great Synagogue yesterday.

• Hanukkah in Tbilisi

The Prime Minister said Hanukkah was a symbol of God’s victory over evil and wished peace for the Jewish people living in Georgia and elsewhere.

He also stressed the "exemplary” friendship between Georgia and Israel that dated back thousands of years.

Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili also congratulated Jews on the holiday yesterday. The President issued a special congratulatory address and said the unity of Georgians and Jews spanned 2,600 years on Georgian soil.

"Your tireless work [and] our collaboration to build our joint homeland is an integral part of Georgia’s history and its social life,” said Margvelashvili in his address.

Hanukkah is an eight-day Jewish festival of lights. The lights, as a symbol, represent the victory of good over evil and the importance of spirit, freedom and justice. Jewish people light one candle on the first day of the celebration and the number of candles increases by one each day so that there are nine candles (including Shamash, a helper candle) glittering in the candelabra (menorah) on the final day of Hanukkah.

Georgian Jews are one of the oldest communities in Georgia. Their migration into the country dated back to the Babylonian era in the 6th Century BC.

The 2600-year history of Georgian Jews was marked by an almost total absence of anti-semitism and a visible assimilation in the Georgian language and culture.