Petaluma’s ‘Drone-orah’ lights up the holiday

Ever since he helped found Chabad Jewish Center of Petaluma in 2015, Rabbi Dovid Bush and the growing community he leads have approached the coming of Hanukkah – specifically, the holiday’s annual menorah-lighting celebration – by asking a series of questions.

“We ask, ‘What can we do that we haven’t done before? What else can we bring to this celebration of Hanukkah?’” explained Bush, taking a break from holiday planning for a chat at a busy Petaluma coffee shop. “And, of course, we ask, ‘What can we do that is even brighter, more joyful, more exciting than what we did the year before?’”

Last December, the answers to those questions were almost literally over-the-top, leading to the launching of a specially outfitted drone to soar over the crowd of 400 people gathered for the celebration at the Petaluma fairgrounds. Suspended beneath the flashing, glowing aircraft was a brightly illuminated menorah, glowing against the night sky as it floated over the heads of mesmerized onlookers.

But the best part, to the kids in attendance at least, was when a trapdoor under the menorah opened to release several small clusters of gelt – the chocolate candy coins that are a traditional part of Hanukkah celebrations. Buoyed in the air on little parachutes, the gelt floated delightfully downward to where an eager accumulation of children waited to claim their treat.

The moment definitely checked the box of being brighter, more joyful and more exciting than the previous year. That wasn’t easy, since the 2020 celebration – held in the midst of the 2020 COVID-19 shutdowns – was a massive, drive-through Hanukkah experience that drew 650 people to the fairgrounds to celebrate, parade-style, from the safety of their cars. But for sheer creativity and resourcefulness, the drone gelt drop easily eclipsed even that.

“We had already done a gelt drop from the top of a fire truck, in 2018, after the fires,” explained Bush. “So last year I was thinking, ‘How can we drop coins from something else? How can we drop them from the sky?’ Imagine that, money falling from the sky! Can you imagine a more magical experience?”

Bush was captivated by the idea. “I reached out to a contact who knows about drones, who I heard about from another Chabad rabbi, and I called him up and said, ‘We want to drop chocolate coins out of a drone. Can you help us?’ and he said, ‘Well, this other Chabad rabbi who just introduced you to me, he asked me about suspending a menorah from a drone, and having it flying around overhead.’”

Bush’s response was to combine the two ideas into one.

”Why not have a lighted menorah hanging from the drone, and then the coins would fall out from the menorah?“ he recalled thinking. ”Another magical experience, right? It could be called a drone-orah! So we did it, and it really was magical. The whole celebration was magical, and very meaningful, since for many of us, it was the largest gathering we’d been to since the whole COVID thing started. It was a sign that there was life after COVID. And the drone made it even more special.“

Besides being magical, the event was unprecedented: “As far as I know, last year in Petaluma was the first time a drone gelt drop has ever happened anywhere.”

Thanks to a viral video taken at the event, it definitely won’t be the last. Not only will the drone-orah be flying again this year – during Chabad Jewish Center’s 8th annual Hanukkah celebration at the fairgrounds on Sunday, Dec. 18 – but according to Bush, it appears there will be additional drone gelt drops taking place at other Hanukkah gatherings across the country.

“Last year, two days after the event, a friend sent me a link to a video online, and said, ‘Is this your menorah lighting?’” Bush said. “I looked at the clip, and it was indeed our drone menorah dropping the gelt. And he said, ‘My brother in England sent this to me.’”

After a bit of sleuthing, Bush discovered that the video, reposted recently by the local group on its Facebook page, had been captured by visitors from Argentina. From there the clip was forwarded numerous times on WhatsApp, where it was being shared on Jewish websites all over the world.

“It even appeared on the central Chabad website in Israel,” said Bush. “Our Petaluma drone-orah had gone viral. And for the last several months I’ve been fielding calls from rabbis all over, saying, ‘Hey, I saw your drone gelt drop. How did you do that? We’d like to do it this year, too.’ So this Hanukkah, there will be a whole bunch of drone-menorah gelt drops, inspired by the one in Petaluma.”

For those attending the celebration in Petaluma on Sunday – the first night of Hanukkah – there will be a fire-juggling act, face-painting and balloon-twisting, latkes and jelly donuts, a live DJ playing Hanukkah music, a dancing dreidel, the “world’s largest dreidel” (basically a cement truck dressed up as a dreidel), the “Mega-Nine-Foot Menorah” and, of course, the now world-famous drone-orah.

Bush expects that this year’s event will be even more meaningful, as the community puts another year between the shutdowns of 2020 and the present.

“It’s important to be together, because Hanukkah is about sharing light,” said Bush. “Hanukkah is about taking the flame from one candle and lighting another, then another. It only takes one candle to illuminate a darkened room, but when you have all of them lit, it’s a glorious thing. And we are the light. So let’s gather and celebrate, and watch the drone fly over the fairgrounds and drop gelt for the children, and eat some jelly donuts, and share our light together.”