LEBANON, Pa. (WHTM) -- A synagogue in Lebanon is showing their support for Ukraine, another example of solidarity in the Midstate. Congregation Beth Israel changed their menorah lights to the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
The rabbi said the change is more than just a show of solidarity. The synagogue has a long history in Eastern Europe.
Blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, have been showing up across the Midstate as people show their support for the Ukrainian people.
"I think it helps with people's feelings of helplessness," Judith Clark, a member of Congregation Beth Israel said.
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Judith said the new lights in the two menorah displays are a tangible way to show the community stands behind Ukraine.
"It's on the main street there, on 8th Street, so a lot of people driving past will see it," she said.
Judith and her husband Joseph have been members of the synagogue for 45 years. The two were part of the team that came up with the idea, and Joseph figured out how to get the colored lights.
"They have a really neat LED light that comes with a remote that you can select the color," he said.
Beth Israel rabbi Sam Yolen said this is the congregation's public statement, but there is a personal connection which goes even deeper.
"Our community has terrifying memories of what it was like to be under the Russian thumb," Yolen said.
Many of the congregation's earliest members came from Eastern Europe.
"In the 1880s to the 1930s...they came from Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine," Yolen said.
His own family has ties overseas.
"My great grandfather was from Dnipro, which is on the Dnipier river in Ukraine. Most of them got out because they ran away from the Russian czar's army," he said.
Ukraine does hold some painful memories for the Jewish community.
"The Ukrainians did not do well by the Holocaust," Joseph said.
However, he said that is in the past. He and his wife said the present is what matters.
"If you see something that is wrong and you do nothing, you become complicit by your silence," Joseph said.
Joseph said they plan to keep the displays up as long as the lightbulbs keep burning, but he said he will replace any that go out.
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