Re-creating history

KFAR HASHMONAIM, Israel – Dressed in a tunic and brandishing a sword, Zohar Baram leaps around the makeshift stage in the re-created village of Kfar Hashmonaim as dozens of children follow the action.

“I am the old Mattathias, and I have seen a lot in my life,” he says in a booming voice. “The Greeks have forbidden us from reading the Torah and observing the Sabbath. … We are Jews, and we will always be Jews. Whoever is for God, follow me!”

What follows is a tale of military triumph and a miraculous supply of oil, a story told the world over that gains magic when recounted in the land where it actually took place.

The re-enactment of the Hanukkah story, which commemorates the time when a small band of Jews, the Hasmoneans, fought the Greeks for the right to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem, is only part of a visit to Baram’s Hasmonean village, which tries to re-create life during that period, more than 2,000 years ago.

At the village, about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, children can participate in several activities appropriate to Hanukkah (which ends on Sunday).

In one area they harvest olives from a tree and crush them into oil using an ancient olive press. In another they make mosaics, and in a third they make copies of ancient coins.

Baram says old coins were found here, less than a mile from the traditional site of the grave of the Maccabees, the leaders of the group that eventually won independence from the Greeks.

He says understanding the Hanukkah story is one way to deepen Israeli children’s Jewish identity.

“Thousands of Israeli children have visited here,” Baram said. “They learn about the Maccabees and understand their nationalism, and their religion becomes stronger.”

The Hanukkah story is oft told. After their military victory in 165 B.C., the Jews retook control of the temple, but it had been defiled by idol worship. They wanted to rekindle its eternal flame, but they found only one small flask of consecrated oil.

According to legend, that small supply, enough for only one day, lasted for eight, which gave the Jews time to prepare new oil. And which gave the world Hanukkah, meaning “dedication” or “consecration” in Hebrew.

The miracle of the oil has led to the custom of eating foods fried in oil for Hanukkah: In the United States, the most popular is latkes, or potato pancakes; in Israel, there are sufganiyot, or jelly doughnuts.

Recently, some of the more upscale bakeries in Israel have gotten creative, offering such fancy filling flavors as Bailey’s Irish Cream and rum-chocolate.

On a recent day at Kfar Hashmonaim, nearly 100 children from an ultra-Orthodox school in the southern desert town of Yerucham had traveled by bus for more than two hours to visit the village.

At the olive press, groups of four or five lined up behind the long pole that turns the grinding stone that crushes the olives. They pushed the pole, crushed the olives and tasted the oil.

At the mosaics station, they put colored tiles together to make a design, and at the coins station, they saw how coins were minted and each got one to take home.

Hanukkah comes at the darkest time of the year, and one of the themes of the holiday is bringing light into the darkness. Each night one more candle is lit until, on the last night, there are nine candles: eight for the holiday and the “shamash,” the candle used to light all the others. There’s a custom not to work while the candles are burning.

In many homes, the children play dreidel, a gambling game with a spinning top. Each side has a Hebrew letter. In most places, the letters spell “A Great Miracle Happened There”; in Israel, they say “A Great Miracle Happened Here.”