This year, Hannukah will commence on the evening of 1st December.Although many people think Hanukkah is the ‘Jewish Christmas’, in fact it is a holiday that commemorates an altogether different event namely the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian-Greek rulers of Jerusalem in 164BC. One of the central parts of the festival is the recognition of the temple’s being ‘rededicated’. At this time, God made a single day’s worth of oil burn in a lamp for eight whole days.
For this reason, one popular translation for the name Hanukkah is ‘festival of light’ or ‘feast of lights’. Each night, one more candle in a special candelabra is lit. In total there are 9 candles, which commemorate the days that the oil in the temple burned for.
One popular custom is to eat fried food at this festival. This is another reference to the oil used in the temple.A typical delicacy is the Latke which is a potato pancake friend and served with apple sauce.
More recently, Jews have started the practise of gift giving – possibly because of the festival’s proximity to Christmas. Having said that, normally gifts are only exchanged between family members or very close friends.
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