Turkey’s Jews marked a milestone Dec. 13 with a public celebration of the Hanukkah holiday, said to be the first in the republic's history after decades of Hanukkahs marked behind closed doors in synagogues or homes. Members of the tiny community took to the streets for the ceremony, as the tradition requires, lighting thousands of candles at Istanbul’s Ortakoy Square.

The call for the public celebration had come from Ivo Molinas, the editor-in-chief of Shalom, the newspaper of Turkey’s Jewish community. In remarks to Al-Monitor, Molinas said how he would look yearningly at images of Hanukkah celebrations held in city squares across Europe and the United States. “I shared those pictures on Twitter and asked why we shouldn’t do the same in Istanbul,” he said. “The reactions were positive, and then we had talks with the mayor. Due to reservations about security, we did not make an announcement [in advance] and instead sent SMS [text] messages to community members shortly before the celebration.”

The crowd gathered at a symbolic venue — a street between the Ortakoy Synagogue and Istanbul’s iconic seafront Ortakoy Mosque. After children performed Hanukkah songs, the rabbi of the Ortakoy Synagogue lit the candles of a huge candelabra, together with the imam of the Ortakoy Mosque. “We are experiencing a miracle here,” the head of Turkey’s Jewish community, Ishak Ibrahimzadeh, exclaimed in his address to the crowd.

Molinas said the sentiment of stupefaction was overwhelming. “There were about 1,000 people of all ages — old, young, children. They were lighting up candles and singing in the street. The elderly Turkish Jews were crying, shedding tears of joy. Some would not believe it. ‘We are out in freezing weather, celebrating our holiday in the street. Is this for real?’ they would ask. Then, they would go to the candelabra and touch it, and would go ‘Oh, it’s really real.’”