Les anglonautes

About | Search | Vocapedia | Learning | Podcasts | Videos | History | Culture | Science | Translate

 Previous Home Up Next

 

Vocapedia > Religions > Judaism > Hanukkah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jewish holidays > Hanukkah / festival of light        UK / USA

 

Hanukkah commemorates

the reclaiming

of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem

during the Maccabean Revolt.

https://www.npr.org/2015/12/05/
458518956/beyond-the-dreidel-the-songs-of-hanukkah-and-how-theyve-changed 

 

 

https://www.npr.org/series/hanukkah-lights/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Hanukkah

 

 

2023

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/09/
hanukkah-is-marked-by-mourning-for-jews-across-uk

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/
hanukkah-traditions-comfort-mother-israeli-held-captive-gaza-two-months-2023-12-08/

 

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/08/
1217944137/hanukkah-celebrations-jewish-joy-israel-hamas-war-increasing-antisemitism

 

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/07/
1217863281/this-years-hanukkah-celebrations-are-tempered-by-israels-war-with-hamas

 

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/07/
1217979422/as-hanukkah-begins-
many-american-jews-consider-how-this-old-story-resonates-toda

 

 

 

 

2020

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/13/
945858775/jewish-cantors-celebrate-hanukkah-with-virtual-concerts

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/12/
945788794/celebrating-hanukkah-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/12/
945611059/why-do-we-give-presents-on-hanukkah-nate-gadol-has-the-story

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/10/
944933520/in-new-picture-book-family-adds-a-ninth-night-of-hanukkah

 

 

 

 

http://www.npr.org/2016/12/23/
502159396/hanukkah-lights-2016

 

 

 

 

http://www.npr.org/2015/12/05/
458518956/beyond-the-dreidel-the-songs-of-hanukkah-a
nd-how-theyve-changed

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2011/dec/23/
hanukkah-celebrations-around-world-in-pictures

 

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/
opinion/01jacobson.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanukkah celebrations around the world - in pictures        UK        December 2011

 

Hanukkah,

also known

as the Festival of Lights,

is one of the most important

Jewish holidays

and is celebrated worldwide

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/dec/23/
hanukkah-celebrations-around-world-in-pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the eight-day festival of Hanukkah        USA

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/
opinion/hanukkah-unabridged.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corpus of news articles

 

Religions / faith >

 

Judaism, Jewish faith > Hanukkah

 

 

 

The True Meaning of Hanukkah

 

December 7, 2012

The New York Times

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER

 

Washington

WHEN my brother was in kindergarten, where he was the only Jewish student, a parent organizing enrichment activities asked my mother to tell the class the story of Hanukkah. My mother obligingly brought in a picture book and began to read about foreign conquerors who were not letting Jews in ancient Israel worship freely, even defiling their temple, until a scrappy group led by the Maccabee family overthrew one of the most powerful armies in the world and won their liberty.

The woman was horrified.

The Hanukkah story, she interrupted, was not about war. It was about the miracle of an oil lamp that burned for eight days without replenishing. She urged my mother to close the book. My mother refused.

The woman wasn’t alone. Many Americans, Jews as well as Christians, think that the legend of the long-lasting oil is the root of Hanukkah’s commemoration. And perhaps that mistake is no surprise, given that for many the holiday has morphed into “Christmas for Jews,” echoing the message of peace on earth accompanied by gift giving. In doing so, the holiday’s own message of Jewish survival and faith has been diluted.

Hanukkah is one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays in America. But unlike Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Passover (or even the lesser-known Sukkot and Shavuot), all of which are explicitly mentioned in the Torah, Hanukkah gets only a brief, sketchy reference in the Talmud, the voluminous collection of Jewish oral law and tradition written down hundreds of years after the Maccabees’ revolt.

There for the first time the miracle of the oil is recorded: the ancient temple in Jerusalem held an eternal flame, but after the desecration by the foreign invaders — including the sacrificing of pigs, a non-kosher animal, on the altar — only one day’s worth of purified oil remained. Yet the faithful went ahead and lighted it.

The oil burned in the rededicated temple for eight days, long enough for a new supply to arrive. Hence the practice of lighting candles for eight nights to observe Hanukkah, which means dedication in Hebrew. (Perhaps just as significantly, the reference to oil also gave rise to a holiday tradition of eating foods like potato pancakes and doughnuts that had been cooked in it.)

Though Hanukkah is a minor Jewish holiday, 19th-century activists in America promoted it to encourage their coreligionists to take pride in their heritage. During the 20th century it was embraced more broadly by Jews who wanted to fit in with other Americans celebrating the holiday season — and to make their kids feel better about not getting anything from Santa.

It helped, of course, that Hanukkah falls near Christmas on the calendar and traditionally involved candles and small monetary gifts. Over time, children began receiving grander presents, and Hanukkah-themed season’s greeting cards proliferated. Some families even started to purchase “Hanukkah bushes,” small trees often decked out with Stars of David and miniature Maccabees.

By the 1980s, when I was a child, menorahs had been placed next to mangers in the public square and Hanukkah songs had been incorporated into winter holiday concerts. Despite this recognition, I still felt excluded enough to brag to classmates that my holiday was better than Christmas, since it had eight days of gift giving, instead of one.

While elevating Hanukkah does a lot of good for children’s morale, ignoring or sanitizing its historical basis does a great disservice to the Jewish past and present.

The original miracle of Hanukkah was that a committed band of people led a successful uprising against a much larger force, paving the way for Jewish independence and perhaps keeping Judaism itself from disappearing. It’s an amazing story, resonant with America’s own founding, that offers powerful lessons about standing up for one’s convictions and challenging those in power.

Many believe the rabbis in the Talmud recounted the miracle of the light alongside the military victory because they did not want to glorify war. That in itself is an important teaching, as are the holiday’s related messages of renewal, hope and turning away from darkness.

But it’s a story with dark chapters as well, including the Maccabean leaders’ religious zealotry, forced conversions and deadly attacks on their neighbors. These transgressions need to be grappled with. And that is precisely what the most important Jewish holidays do: Jews on Passover spill out wine from their glasses to acknowledge Egyptian suffering caused by the 10 plagues, and congregations at Rosh Hashana read and struggle with God’s order to Abraham to bind his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

If we’re going to magnify Hanukkah, we should do so because it offers the deeper meaning and opportunity for introspection that the major Jewish holidays provide.

 

Hilary Leila Krieger is the Washington bureau chief

for The Jerusalem Post.

The True Meaning of Hanukkah,
NYT, 7.12.2012,
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/
opinion/hanukkah-unabridged.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Explore more on these topics

Anglonautes > Vocapedia

 

Judaism, Jewish faith, Jews

 

 

Antisemitism

 

 

Middle East > Israel

 

 

religion / faith,

abuse, sexual abuse,

violence, extremism,

secularism, atheism

 

 

death

 

 

world > foreign policy,

United Nations (U.N.),

diplomacy

 

 

frustration, anger, hate

 

 

fear, scare

 

 

genocide, war,

weapons, arms sales,

espionage, torture

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > History >

20th century > UK / British empire

 

British mandate in Palestine   1920-1948

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > History > 20th century

 

1939-1945

World War 2 > Germany, Europe >

Antisemitism, Adolf Hitler, Nazi era,

Holocaust / Shoah,

Samudaripen

 

 

 

home Up