By MELANIE LIDMAN, Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) — In a video message recorded weeks before he was killed, Hollywood icon Rob Reiner urged Holocaust survivors participating in a Hanukkah ceremony on Thursday to “be resilient” during difficult times.
Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found stabbed to death Sunday at their home in Los Angeles, law enforcement officials said. Their 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bail.
Reiner, who was Jewish, recorded the message for the Hanukkah event in the beginning of October. He noted that his wife’s extended family was killed at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, giving the ceremony special meaning for him.
“We’re living in a time where what’s happening in our country is scary and reminiscent of what we’ve seen happen in the past, and we just hope that we can all survive this and that we can hold on to our democracy,” Reiner, who was an outspoken advocate for liberal causes, said in his message.
The video was broadcast as part of a virtual candle lighting ceremony honoring Holocaust survivors internationally on the fifth night of Hanukkah. The event is an initiative of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, an organization that advocates for Holocaust survivors.
Around 100 Holocaust survivors gathered at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon for a candle-lighting ceremony.
In Hebrew, Hanukkah means “dedication,” and the holiday marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C., after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying foreign forces.
Jews celebrate the eight-day holiday, which this year began on Sunday, by lighting a nightly candle in honor of the tiny supply of ritually pure oil that they found in the Temple that lasted for eight nights, instead of just one.
Many Jewish communities are reeling from the attack on a Hanukkah event in Sydney, Australia, where 15 people were killed.
“Even in these difficult days, when antisemitism is rising and Jewish communities around the world are under attack — this very week on the first night of Hanukkah in Sydney, Australia — we draw strength and inspiration from you, the survivors, from your personal and collective resilience,” Greg Schneider, the executive vice president of the Claims Conference, told the group of survivors in Jerusalem.
In addition to Reiner, Barbra Streisand, Billy Crystal, Jason Alexander, Julianna Margulies, Debra Messing, Adam Arkin and Jamie Lee Curtis were among those who made prerecorded videos for the event. Journalists Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash also recorded messages.
“If ever we needed to be resilient, it’s now,” Reiner said in his message. “Let’s be resilient.”
Reiner was a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, calling him in a 2017 interview with Variety “mentally unfit” to be president and “the single-most unqualified human being to ever assume the presidency of the United States.” In a shocking post after Reiner’s death, Trump suggested that Rob Reiner’s outspoken opposition was partially responsible for his murder.