What is my Chanukah (or Hannukah, or Hanukah)?

I’ll start with a brief disclaimer that I am a pretty lax, Jewish born and raised person. My family probably fit into the ‘mainstream’ in terms of the Anglo-Jewish community as it was. My family is from an Ashkenazi background, a bit of Polish, Dutch, Estonian, Czech Jewish, as far as I am aware, anyway but this is kind of typical of a lot of British Jewish people. We attended orthodox services most Saturdays, we kept the festivals and I went to Jewish schools. I’m giving my perception and memories of Chanukah as we celebrated but Judaism has many traditions and Jewish people look and celebrate things differently. This year, 5721 (or 2020), Chanukah begins on the evening of Thursday 10th December and ends on Friday 18th December (in the Jewish calendar, it is the 25th of Kislev).

I enjoyed Chanukah. Chanukah is a festival of light and of ‘rededication’ — in fact, the literal translation of חנוכה. it’s hebrew name. This, incidentally, is why the English spellings vary, we have different ways to transliterate. But back to Chanukah. It is a winter festival and usually falls in December although sometimes it falls in late November (we have a lunar calendar which doesn’t align strictly with the secular calendar). It is also one of our ‘minor’ festivals. We have lots of festivals and there are different types of festivals and Chanukah, with Purim, which is in the Spring, is a minor one. The ‘minor’ can is a formal status but it doesn’t necessarily reflect the importance to individuals and communities. You might find families more likely to celebrate Chanukah, than, say, Shavuot (Pentecost) which is one of the one of the ‘pilgrim’ festivals. In some ways, it has become a ‘Christmas’ proxy because there is a tradition of gift-giving and it is around Christmas time, although, in my experience, it manifests in a very different ways.

I always liked the minor festivals, there was less gravity and more fun to them. Chanukah means ‘dedication’, it refers to the rededication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem after it was ransacked and descrated by the ruling Greeks. This included slaughtered pigs being left in the holiest places. A band of rebel Jews (called Maccabees), led by Judah Maccabee, fought back. They challenged, amongst others, the Hellenistic Jewish people who had been keen on assimilation. In their victory, they made their way into the Temple, finding the devastation, they saw the ‘Nir Tamid’ (everlasting flame or eternal light — which was supposed to burn at all times), had been extinguished. They found a little pot of oil which was enough to last one day, but the miracle of Chanukah is that this little pot of oil lasted for the eight days which were enough to press more oil (of course it is a special type of oil which was used). So the light was not extinguished again. There is more information about the history of the festival here.

So this is why it is a festival of light. This is why each Jewish home will light a Chanukiah — a little candelabra which has space for nine candles — one for each of the eight days of the festival (because, yes, the festival lasts for the eight days of the miracle of the oil) and one is to light the other lights. The Chanukiah is supposed to be placed in a window where people passing by can see it and be reminded. This, I think now, depends on how much you may wish to be identified as a Jewish household (an anxiety which has grown over the decades), but the reference is to providing light in the darkness. This is why, perhaps, seeing the large public Chanukiahs being lit in public spaces is something that plays tribute to the religion.

Traditionally (and I’ll say this with the proviso that traditions do vary, from community to community — as you can imagine, coming from different places — and even from family to family), we lit the candles in the evening, and the children would receive a present every night of the festival. These would be small presents, perhaps some colouring pencils or socks but the eighth night would be the ‘bigger’ present, it would tend to lead up to the last night, with all the candles burning. The difference between the gift-giving for our family and a Christmas, was that it was only children who received presents. Adults would not give presents to other adults and children would not give presents to adults. It was a festival for children.

One of the other traditions for us, at least for one or two of the nights, was to have ‘Chanukah ‘gelt’’ (gelt is a yiddish term for money). This might be cash but more commonly was chocolate coins. Our synagogues and schools (I went to Jewish schools) had ‘Chanukah parties’ but we knew our presents were from our parents and grandparents!

It is traditional to eat fried food, c.f. the miracle of the oil. We have doughnuts and latkes (potato pancakes). All Jewish festivals have particular foods and the ‘fried food’ one is an extra treat! There are games, are well, with a dreidel, which one might see reference to which is a four sided spinning top with four Hebrew letters on it (these represent the first letters of the phrase ‘A great miracle happened there’ (or here if you are playing in Israel). This is the best explanation I can find.

We have Chanukah songs that are often sung among the family, after lighting the Chanukiah in the evening.

Chanukah isn’t Christmas. It’s not ‘our’ Christmas. It is a festival which has a tradition of gift-giving and, like most, is based around family spending time together and reflecting on where we are, where we have come from and fighting adversity and those who would prefer us to not be here. It is important to Jewish children who don’t want to be left out by Christmas but the present expectation is a little different, or at least, it was within our house!

For me, I like to think our modern miracle, our modern reinvention of the Chanukah story, is our existence and maintenance of our traditions, despite so many challenges and so much hatred. Our ‘great miracle’ is very much happening here.

This year, when I have taken to return to some of the practices of my childhood and youth, I bought a Chanukiah for the first time in many years. My synagogue, in the absence of parties and meetings which would be traditional, are having some zoom-based candle lighting groups. We can light together and sing together and it can provide a little light in the darkness and a feeling of community through the darkest period of the winter, in one of the hardest winters we will have faced.