6 Things You Didn't Know About Hanukkah — Until Now!
Let’s be honest, Hanukkah gets steamrolled by Christmas very year. There’s not as much talk or mention of it in media, advertising or on social networks. The Internet is plump with holiday cheer and memes for the Christmas holiday, but I have yet to scroll past a post on Facebook that wishes the masses a “Happy Hanukkah.”
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Tomorrow, Dec. 6, is the start of Hanukkah. (Bet you didn’t know that!) So, I take this Saturday afternoon to share what I've learned about Hanukkah, the eight-day celebration also known as the Jewish Festival of Lights.
I came upon the inspiration for this editorial quite incidentally. Recently – within the past few weeks – I made friends with a lawyer and a Jew. (No, this isn’t the start of the very classic “they walk into a bar” gag). They’re a couple who are two of the kindest, most intelligent, most vivacious individuals I know. (Totally crushing on this couple, and not ashamed to admit it.)
Her name is Rebecca Glaser, a native of Cleveland’s streetcar suburb Shaker Heights and new to El Paso. I’ve never been close friends with a Jew, so, for the first time in my life, I got to ask the questions that this gentile has always wanted to ask but never comfortable asking. I asked her if I should write “Jew” or “Jewish person,” fearing the former would be offensive. She gave me the thumbs up, and I came to realize the exact depth of my ignorance on all things about Judaism.
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My gift to you, dear, sweet readers, this Hanukkah is the gift of knowledge. To save you from the existence of an ignoramus, which I have known, I share with you 6 things I learned about Hanukkah. (If there's someone special in your life who is Jewish, oy vey, are your going to impress!)
Gifts are not a big part of the celebration.
“Presents is not really associated with Hanukkah,” Glaser said. “That’s more of like the Americanization of Hanukkah because of the calendar and it falls near Christmas.”
The holiday is more about lighting the Menorah, praying, playing games like spin the dreidel, and singings songs, like “Sivivon Sov Sov Sov” and “Maoz Tzur.”
Gift giving on Hanukkah is a thing, but it’s done sparingly.
“There are some families who I think give kids presents for eight days — some families do that but my family wasn’t like that. We’d get one nice present and that would be it,” Glaser said.
Hanukkah is celebrated in the home, not the temple.
“A lot of our festivals and holidays are celebrated in the home, not so much by going to a service,” Glaser said. “Hanukkah’s not really a temple holiday, like the high holidays. It’s a home holiday.”
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Hanukkah is not the most important Jewish holiday.
“It’s a pretty minor holiday in Judaism,” Glaser said. “There are a lot more important holidays. There are other holidays that are supposed to be for gift giving.”
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, are known in Judaism as the “high holidays,” or “high holy days.”
Traditional foods are cooked in oil because it has significance.
According to Chabad.org, Hanukah celebrates a victory in the 2nd Century BCE (Before Common Era) by a small army of Jews, known as the Maccabees, over a colossal Greek Army that occupied the Holy Land. The battle was in response to the Greeks’ attempt to rid the Jewish inhabitants of Israel of their lifestyle and right to practice Judaism.
When the Maccabees liberated the Temple from the Greek invaders, they found only a small cruse of pure and undefiled olive oil fit for fueling the Menorah, which was an important part of daily service in the Holy Temple. However, the fuel they found was only enough to light the Menorah for one day, and it would take eight days to produce new pure oil. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days and nights.
Because the miracle was in the oil, cooking with oil has meaning, Glaser said.
“There’s a lot of food associated with Hanukkah,” she said. “There’s something called potato latke. There’s a lot of foods that you fry in oil because the whole significance of Hanukkah is that there was only a little bit of oil, but the miracle of Hanukkah is that the oil lasted eight days. So, potato latkes are like potato pancakes. It’s like a fried potato pancake.”
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Traditional Hanukkah sweets: sufganiyot (kosher jelly donuts) and gelt (sometimes meaning “money” but also the term for chocolate coins given as gifts to children.)
Hanukkah doesn’t fall on the same days every year because the Jewish calendar is established by the cycles of the moon and the sun.
According to Chabad.org, Hanukkah begins on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev. The Jewish calendar is primarily based on the lunar cycle and its dates fluctuate with respect to other calendar systems. Therefore, Hanukkah can fall anywhere between November 28th and December 26th.
There is no one correct spelling for “Hanukkah,” although spell check and AP style will tell you otherwise.
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In Hebrew, the word for Hanukkah cannot be transliterated into English exactly. According to Chabad.org, in the Hebrew, Hanukkah is pronounced with the letter “chet.” The letter’s “ch” sound is not enunciated like the “ch” in child, but rather it’s a throaty sound like the “ch” in Johann Bach. There is no English equivalent for the sound of the letter “chet.” The letter “H” in English is the closest, but it’s not exact. Neither spelling — “Hanukkah” and “Chanukkah” — is incorrect. Other variations, which have only one “K,” also exist and are widely accepted. However, the AP Stylebook, which governs the style by which journalists write, notes the correct spelling as “Hanukkah.” And Word’s spell check accepts all variations save for “Chanukkah” — it doesn’t like that one.
