Happy Hanukkah 8-Day Jewish Festival Honoring Freedom Begins
A dozen menorahs blazed Sunday night at the home of Marti Martin and Dennis Twigg as several Spokane families ushered in the first night of Hanukkah.
A relatively minor Jewish holiday, the eight-day festival has become the Jewish response to Christmas.
“It’s kind of gotten blown out of proportion, at least in the United States,” said Martin, a leader at Spokane’s Temple Beth Shalom. “Just because of the close proximity to Christmas.”
Every year Martin and Twigg and their two children throw a Hanukkah party. Guests - between 25 and 35 - are invited to bring their menorahs.
After saying the traditional blessings in Hebrew, everyone lit their menorahs en masse. In most Jewish households, every person has his or her own menorah.
The guests sang both traditional and modern Hanukkah songs and the children played dreidel - a game with a spinning top.
“All of our holidays involve children,” Martin said. “It wouldn’t really be a Hanukkah party if everybody didn’t bring their children.”
The celebration commemorates religious and political freedom.
“It’s a reminder to us how fragile that freedom can be,” said Rabbi Jacob Izakson.
The message is particularly important this year, as the world mourns the death of Yitzhak Rabin. As prime minister of Israel, Rabin is was credited with bringing peace to the Middle East. He was assassinated last month by a Jewish law student who disagreed with Rabin’s attempt to trade land for peace with the Palestinians.
“The story of Hanukkah has a modern message,” Izakson said.
“That can’t be forgotten in all of this.”
In 165 B.C. Syrians were occupying what was then Palestine, forcefully imposing Greek religion on the Jewish inhabitants.
A small group of Jews, known as the Maccabees, rebelled and recaptured their Temple from the Syrians, who had turned it into a pagan temple.
Attempting to rededicate the Temple, the Maccabees found enough oil to light the menorah for one night.
Legend has it the menorah stayed lit for eight days while more oil was brought in from another city.
Hence the eight days of Hanukkah.
“It’s not really a religious holiday,” Twigg explained, “It’s kind of like the Fourth of July. We are celebrating a liberation.”
Over the years, traditions have been added to the celebration, such as giving gifts or money to children and serving latkes, fried potato pancakes.
Although on the surface, Hanukkah and Christmas have little in common, there is a small connection, Twigg pointed out.
The war the Maccabees started continued for 25 years and is credited with preserving Judaism.
A century or so later, a Jew named was Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Christmas is the Christian celebration of his birth.
This year, the Hanukkah will end on Christmas Eve. As Jews light the last candle on the menorah, Christians will light the last candle on the Advent wreath.
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