On Monday, December 11, 2000, in the midst of the busy Chanukah preparations and pre-Chanukah events, a team Los Angeles Times reporters dropped by Chabad House.  This is what they had to say:
 

     SANTA MONICA--Menorahs out of bullet shells?
     The ancient idea makes perfect sense to Rabbi Avrohom Levitansky of Bais Chabad in Santa Monica.
     "In the Torah, it says weapons of war would ultimately be used for peace," he said. "So I put 3 and 3 together and got 16."
     Six years ago, Levitansky called the Santa Monica Police Department and requested hundreds of bullet shells left over from target practice. The idea of making menorah candleholders out of the spent shell casings would be a hit, he thought.
     He was right.
     "The empty shell casings are not worth anything to us," said Lt. Gary Gallinot, a department spokesman. "It makes a nice product out of something that is used. No one has ever complained about it."
     Since 1994, Levitansky has been going back to the police department every Hanukkah to collect the ammunition casings for 9mm and .38-caliber handguns.
     He brings them back to Bais Chabad, where dozens of children glue the bullet shells to pieces of painted wood to make menorahs for their families.
     During the 15-minute process, the children learn about the meaning of the holiday, which began at sundown Thursday and continues through Dec. 29.
     "I don't exactly approve of having bullets in my house, but it does have meaning," said Eric Merenstein, 11, of Beverly Hills, one of the Bais Chabad students.
     "There was a war where the Maccabees fought off the Greeks. That was one event that brought about Hanukkah. So it's kind of appropriate to use bullet shells for the menorahs."
     Twenty-two centuries ago, during the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, an important part of the daily service was to fuel the menorah with sacred olive oil.
     When the Syrian Greeks waged a spiritual war with the Jews and invaded the Holy Temple, they left the Jews with only one day's supply of oil.
     The Maccabees lighted the menorah with this small vial of olive oil and, miraculously, the candles burned for eight days and eight nights. For this reason, Hanukkah lasts eight days with one candle lighted each day.
     To further the historical significance of the holiday, Levitansky also shows children at Bais Chabad how to press olives to get oil from a wood-barreled presser.
     "This is all part of the lesson," he said. "Pressing olives is hard work. It symbolizes that in order to get to the good, you have to go through hard times. Good will always prevail. It may not look like that, but it will. That's what Hanukkah is all about."
     Making menorahs out of bullet shells is for big kids too.
     At Chabad Residential Treatment Center in the Miracle Mile district, about 40 residents recently made menorahs out of tiles and bullet shells donated by a Los Angeles Police Department pistol range.
     One resident, Yaakov Zimmerman, 43, said he remembers that when he was in the army in Israel in the 1960s, tank missile shells were used to make menorahs. The same concept is being applied at the six-month drug and alcohol recovery program.
     "Everything this program is about is connecting with the spirit of light," said Rabbi Yosef Cunin.
     'We don't do many arts and crafts activities, but this is an important one to show the residents how taking something used in violence can be used to contact the spiritual side of ourselves."

      FYI: HANDS-ON DEMONSTRATIONS
      Members of Bais Chabad in Santa Monica will create menorahs and give a demonstration on making olive oil from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday at Santa Monica Place's North Court. Information: (310) 453-3011. 

Copyright 2000 Times Community News