This year Hanukkah falls on the same day as Christmas. Although this doesn’t mean it will be celebrated any differently. The Jewish holiday Hanukkah has been celebrated for over 2,000 years and still is celebrated with similar customs such as saying the blessings in front of the candles, and lighting one each day using the menorah.
The word Hanukkah means ‘The Jewish festival of Lights’, and is a celebratory holiday, praising the rededication, in 164 BCE, of the second temple in Jerusalem, and the Maccabean victories over the Seleucid monarchy.
To rededicate this temple to God, the Isrealites decided to light a candle that should’ve stayed lit for one day. Against all expectations, it stayed lit for eight days. Now to celebrate, starting at one candle, one more is to be lit every day for a whole 8 day celebration in the midst of the winter season.
“You light one candle each night, The candles are on a menorah,” NHS Sophomore Marcela Corral said. To light the candles, you use the candle in the middle ,which is held up higher and called the ‘shamash’, which means server or attendant candle in Hebrew.
“My favorite custom I celebrate during Hanukkah is lighting the menorah because my whole family gathers around it, and we say a prayer all together,” NHS sophomore Skylar Urbina said.
On the first night of Hanukkah only, you say the Shehecheyanu prayer. All eight days of the celebration include the prayer of the blessing over the candles, and the blessing for the Hanukkah miracle.
The most popular foods eaten on Hanukkah are latkes, challah, matzah ball soup, and ‘sufganiyot’, which is a Hebrew word for jelly donut.
The jelly donuts and latkes are eaten on Hanukkah because they are fried in oil, which represents the oil of the candle that burned back in 164 BCE.
“My favorite is matzah ball soup,” Urbina said.
It is a Jewish custom to collect and play with Dreidels. They can be plastic or wood or metal. Dreidels can also be clay, referencing the child's Hanukkah song “I Have a Little Dreidel.”
The classic dreidel game is played within a group of people with a spinning top with four flat sides. The sides are flat so when the top is spun it can fall on one particular side. In the middle of the group of people, there is a ‘pot’ or pile of gelt which is little chocolate coins that you compete for.
On your turn, you spin the dreidel and it will land on one of four sides. Each side has a specific Hebrew letter on it. If it lands on the Hebrew letter, nun, you take nothing from the pot. If the dreidel lands on gimel, you take the whole pot. If it lands on hey, you take half the pot. If it lands on shin, you have to add one of your own pieces of gelt to the pot.
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