Happy Hanukkah

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Christmas is fast approaching, TV is full of Christmas ads and Christmas movies, radios are playing nothing but Christmas songs, shops are all decorated and trying get people to spend money buying as much junk as possible ..... it is easy to forget that there are other cultures living amongst us, other religions with their own holidays.
 
One of those is the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, which is starting tomorrow.
 
Hanukkah (or Chanukah) is the Festival of Lights. I am not going to go to great detail about the history of this holiday, I am sure you can find that out by googling it, but basically at this time Jewish people commemorate and celebrate the miracle that happened over 2500 years ago when Antiochus, a Syrian king, took over the Jewish temple and tried to make the Jewish people worship Greek gods and tried to forced them eat pork.
The Jews refused and rebelled. They recaptured Jerusalem but their Temple was nearly destroyed.
They had to repair it and clean it, when they were done they wanted to purify the Temple by burning ritual oil in the Temple’s menorah for eight days, but to their horror they discovered that they only had enough oil for only one day. They decided to light it anyway and to their surprise, the tiny bit of oil they had kept on burning for the whole eight days.
 
The miracle of the Hanukkah oil is celebrated every year, but Hanukkah doesn’t happen every year at the same time since the Jewish calendar is lunar based. It begins on the 25th of Kislev on the Hebrew calendar which usually falls between late November to late December.
 
Many different customs are observed during these holidays, every community has it’s own traditions, but there are some that most follow like lighting a special menorah known as a hanukkiyah for eight days. One candle is lit on the first night of Hanukkah, two on the second, and so on, until the eight day when all eight candles are lit.
Playing the popular Hanukkah game spinning the dreidel, or eating fried foods.
Because our society is predominantly Christian, and Hanukkah falls so close to Christmas, many parents are trying to make the holiday more special for their kids so they don’t feel left out of all the Christmas celebrations going on all around them, so they give their children presents. Usually Jewish children receive one present every day over the eight nights of the holiday.
 
Hope my article gave you at least some idea about Hanukkah, there is so much more to learn, but my aim was not to teach you, only to remind you.
 
So let me wish Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish friends and to everyone else!