After Obama’s dark betrayal, Friedman lights Cedarhurst night

Just two hours before Shabbos, President Obama made official his administrator’s betrayal of the Jewish state, thrusting a pale of uninvited gloom over Shabbos and the start of Chanukah by permitting — by some accounts encouraging — the passage of an anti-Israel resolution in the U.N. Security Council.

By Sunday night, as the American Jewish community was regaining its footing and the chag was underway, ambassador designate David Friedman cast the darkness aside, lighting the giant menorah in Cedarhurst’s Andrew J. Parise Park and dancing with Rabbi Zalman Wolowik of Chabad of the Five Towns.

Friedman, a resident of Woodsburgh village, nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to represent the U.S. in Israel, has for 15 years been one of the honorees chosen to light the Cedarhurst menorah.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry doubled down on the Obama administration’s assault on Israel. He blamed stalled hopes for peace on “extreme elements” in the “settler movement.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded that “Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders” and pointed out that it was Palestinian intransigence and hatred, not “settlers,” who blocked peace.