Dateline Jerusalem — I usually get a great response to essays I write about Israeli trivia. This week for eight days and nights Jews throughout the world will be celebrating Chanukah. Therefore, here is Chanukah trivia.
Chanukah can be spelled Hanukka, Hanukkah, Hannukka, Hannukkah, Hannuka, Hannukah, Hanuka, Hanukah, Chanukka, Chanukkah, Channukka, Channukkah, Channuka, Channukah, Chanuka, or Chanukah. All are attempts at spelling a Hebrew word in English. In Hebrew, it only requires five letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The first three Hebrew letters spell “Chanu” which is Hebrew for “they rested.” The next two letters stand for the numerals 20 and 5. Together the letters mean that “on the 25th day of Kislev they rested from their enemies.”
Chanukah may be one of the most historically documented of the Jewish holidays. But it is not found in the Torah (Hebrew Bible). However, the biblical prophet Daniel foretold the historic events, and the word Chanukah first appears in the Talmud, which is the Oral Torah, consisting of law and commentary. Therefore Chanukah is a rabbinic holiday, sanctioned by rabbinic action rather than a biblical commandment. The Ethiopian Jews who studied Torah in their villages never knew of Chanukah until they were airlifted to Israel. The only Jewish holiday mentioned by Anne Frank in her diary was Chanukah.
During the American Revolution at Valley Forge, Gen. George Washington saw a Jewish soldier lighting Chanukah lamps on a menorah. The soldier told Washington that the Chanukah lamps commemorated the victory of the few over the many. Washington was so inspired that years later, when he became the first President of the United States, he located the soldier and presented him with a gold coin engraved with a Chanukah menorah.
One of the most symbolic objects associated with Chanukah is the menorah. The Jewish Museum in New York City holds the largest collection of menorahs, 1150. The largest nine-branched Chanukah menorah is at Latrun in Israel, 20 meters high, weighing 17 metric tons, spanning 600 square feet. Indonesia, with a Jewish population of less than 500, is home to the largest seven-branched non-Chanukah menorah.
Don’t Mention Calories
Several traditional foods are eaten during Chanukah. Cheese, because the heroine Yehudit fed cheese and wine to Gen. Holofernes before cutting off his head, causing his troops to retreat and the Jews to win. Foods made in oil are eaten to commemorate the miracle of one cruse of pure oil, barely enough to last for one day, burning for eight days. Foods cooked in oil for Chanukah include latkes (fried potato pancakes), Israeli sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), and svinge (Moroccan cruller). One 100-gram sufganiyan has 400 to 600 calories, one svinge has 340-442 calories, and one potato latke has 150. Who can leave out the favorite of children, Chanukah gelt (chocolate coins wrapped in silver or gold foil), 220 calories. In Israel, 24 million jelly doughnuts are consumed during Chanukah. Other traditional Chanukah foods are stifatho (Greek beef casserole flavored with cinnamon and saffron), puchero (South American meat and chickpea stew), Indian lentil pilaf, and Dutch roast goose stuffed with apples.
The game of dreidel is a major activity of Chanukah. A dreidel is a spinning top with four Hebrew letters. In the States or other countries outside of Israel, they are Nun, Gimel, Hay and Shin, which stand for the Hebrew phrase “A great miracle happened there.” In Israel, where the miracles of Chanukah actually occurred, the letters are Nun, Gimel, Hay and Peh, meaning “A great miracle happened here.” Dreidel, a Yiddish word, comes from “drei,” to turn or spin. Israel's oppressors, the Greek-Syrians, forbade Jews from learning Torah so the Jews had to study in secret. Therefore, children would pretend to be gambling with their dreidels when a Greek-Syrian soldier came by.
Not a Smooth Ride
Observance of Chanukah periodically has been prohibited throughout Jewish history. For example, the kindling of Chanukah lights was not permitted in Persia (Iran of today) during the third century because fire was sacred to the magicians who were in power. Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, so those who remained had to convert to Catholicism. Or they converted and observed Judaism in secret. Although Jews eventually would return to Spain after the expulsion, Chanukah was not publicly celebrated until 1998, more than 500 years later.
Notable events occurred during Chanukah. World War I British military leader Lord Allenby led victorious Allied forces into Jerusalem on the first day of Chanukah in 1917. In Modi'in, Israel, the site of the Hasmonean Maccabian victory over the oppressors of Israel, torchbearers run a 30-km relay race from Modi'in to Jerusalem on the first night of Chanukah every year. In fact, an international Jewish Olympics event held in Israel every four years since 1932, is called a Maccabiah. The Hasmonean period, which lasted 25 years, was the last era of Jewish independence until the formation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, almost 2000 years later. One event that never will occur is a new moon on the first day of Chanukah because the Hebrew calendar cycles with the moon and Chanukah falls on the 25th day of the month of Kislev, not the first.
Happy Chanukah.
L'hitraot. Shachar