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Dateline Jerusalem – Shalom from Israel! I wish everyone a happy, healthy and safe holiday season.
Throughout the world, Jews will be celebrating Chanukah in a few hours. In the U.S., the holiday is observed by
lighting colorful candles in a Chanukah menorah for eight nights of the holiday, starting this year on Sunday at nightfall.
Every year the date changes because Jewish holidays go by the Hebrew (or lunar) calendar. There are games of
dreidels or spinning tops, people dance the Hora, and they eat potato pancakes, called latkes, that are fried in oil.
Children are given chocolate candies called Chanukah gelt wrapped in silver or gold foil, shaped like coins. Every
night children receive another gift, eight presents in all. It is a way for American Jewish parents to compete with
the Christmas gifts their children's friends receive during the holiday season.
In Israel, however, parents do not have to compete because mostly everyone is Jewish. Many do not
give presents. If they do, although children do get chocolate gelt, their Chanukah present is a onetime small gift of
money, real gelt, instead of presents for each night. Not only do Jews in Israel celebrate by eating fried potato
pancakes, but they eat jelly donuts called sufganyot, which are fried in oil and dipped in powdered sugar. As with
most everything Jewish, traditions are symbolic. In this case, the frying food in oil symbolizes the oil that
burned for eight nights in the menorah of the Holy Temple when it was rededicated.
Background of Chanukah
Under the reign of Alexander the Great, after he conquered the land in which the Jews lived, what is now
called Israel, many Jews assimilated into the Hellenistic culture of the Greeks. They adopted the Greek language,
customs and dress. In fact, because Alexander the Great was such a benevolent ruler, many Jews even named
their sons Alexander. The Jews who assimilated into the Hellenistic culture were very much like many Jews of
today in the U.S. who have assimilated into the benevolent secular culture of America.
The ironic part about it is that the assimilated U.S. Jews celebrate Chanukah as though it were a major
Jewish holiday, which it isn't. They are actually celebrating a holiday that commemorates the fight by the Maccabees
against assimilation.
About a hundred years after the reign of Alexander the Great, the new ruler named Antiochus, massacred Jews,
prevented them from observing Judaism, and desecrated the Holy Temple by sacrificing pigs on the holy altar. The
Jews who had not assimilated into the Greek society in Jerusalem were led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his
son Judah Maccabee.
They revolted against the assimilation of the Hellenistic Jews and oppression by the Greek government. They
were able to recapture the Holy Temple and rededicate it. However, at the time of the re-dedication there wasn't
enough oil left — that had not been defiled by the Greeks — to light the seven-branched menorah of the
Holy Temple. There was only enough oil to burn for one night.
The Miracle of Eight
But, Chanukah is known as the miracle of lights. The miracle was that the oil burned for eight nights, not
ust one night, and by then there was enough purified oil prepared to continue to have the Holy
Temple's menorah lights burn. As a result, Jews have been celebrating the miracle of Chanukah ever since.
In Israel, the Chanukah menorah is called a chanukkiah. The Chanukah menorah, or chanukkiah, has nine
branches in all, one for each of the eight nights of Chanukah, commemorating the eight nights the oil burned, and
a taller one, called the shamash, which is used to light the others.
In Israel, some people light candles, but most people light wicks floating in olive oil. Again, it is symbolic of
the pure oil that was the miracle of Chanukah.
L'hitraot. Shachar
Shachar is the Hebrew name of a California-based attorney and former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy who moved to Israel last year.
