With this year's observance of Hanukkah coming just a few weeks after the wanton slaughter of 171 people in Mumbai, including nine victims at the Chabad House, a Jewish outreach center run by the Lubavitch sect, local Jewish leaders are emphasizing the holiday's theme of bringing light and hope in a season of darkness.

As the holiday begins at sundown tonight, the celebration will be marked by Chabad of Pittsburgh's annual parade of car menorahs. This year's parade will have 100 cars -- the most ever -- snaking through Squirrel Hill, Shadyside and Oakland and to the Waterfront in Homestead, where a nine-foot public menorah will be lit at 5:30 p.m. at a ceremony with Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato.

"We will also have more public menorah lightings than ever," said Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, director of Chabad of Western Pennsylvania, with events taking place tomorrow at the City-County Building with Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, and at other times in Monroeville, Fox Chapel, the South Hills and Shadyside.

It's all part of Unite the Lights, a world-wide campaign by Chabad that asks everyone to join at least one public or communal menorah lighting, or to plan one with their own family and friends as a call to action.

"The horrible events in Mumbai have provoked a universal outcry and tremendous goodwill by people across the entire spectrum who want to do something meaningful," said Rabbi Rosenfeld.

The Mumbai attacks in India gave added resonance to Hanukkah's historic roots, which reach back to another time of persecution. The holiday commemorates the success of a band of Jewish revolutionaries known as the Maccabees, who in 165 BCE overthrew the Syrian Greeks who would not allow them to practice Judaism. After driving the oppressors out of Jerusalem, the Jews rededicated the temple with a tiny vial of oil that legend says burned miraculously for eight nights.

"Hanukkah takes on extra poignancy this year in light of the attacks," said Rabbi Aaron Bisno of Rodef Shalom, a reform congregation in Oakland.

"There's so much gloom around us and such a sense of foreboding. But when we're confronted with dark forces, the candles of Hanukkah remind us that a small bit of light can cast a glow far and wide."

He noted that the commandment is to put the candles in the window to proclaim the miracle of the oil.

"It's not meant to give you light for activity," Rabbi Bisno said. "It's meant as a promise that tomorrow can be better than today, and a reminder that the holiday is not about gifts, parties, music or the frenzy of activity. It's to declare that the miracle of optimism is ever with us."