On last night of Hanukkah, latkes and remembrance take center stage at Temple Beth Shalom

Potato. Onion. Matzo meal. Egg. Pepper and a little kosher salt.

You’d think it’d be a simple thing to make a latke.

Not so.

“Like herding cats, from the minute we started,” said Hadassah board member Judy Apfelbaum, a member of the congregation of Temple Beth Shalom. “There’s as many versions of a latke as there are people in a room.”

The room in this case being the temple’s kitchens, where a small but dedicated crew grated, mixed, shaped and fried Sunday afternoon, churning out a mountain of potato pancakes. More than 200 at least, though an exact tally was hard to come by. “I have been specifically told that we will have exactly as many as we have, no more and no less,” Apfelbaum said.

For the past week, Hanukkah candles have lit homes and windows around the city, marking off the days when, according to Jewish tradition, a single night’s oil burned for eight during the rededication of the Second Temple more than two millenia ago. Sunday was the final night, and Hadassah was preparing for a crowd.

“We’re open to the whole community,” said Suzanne Rubens, another member of Hadassah’s board.

Hanukkah is a time for both reflection and anticipation, said Rubens. It’s a time to reconnect, exchange gifts and, of course, eat. Served with applesauce and sour cream, the latkes – crisp yet moist, fried a golden brown and almost dangerously rich – would be the centerpiece of the evening’s meal.

“The frying is important,” Apfelbaum said, “To represent the miracle of the oil.”

Founded by a merger of orthodox and reform congregations in the mid-1960s, Temple Beth Shalom traces its roots back to Spokane’s earliest years. Its predecessor, Spokane’s Temple Emanu-El, was Washington state’s first Jewish house of worship, dedicated in 1892. Stained glass windows from Emanu-El now decorate the walls of Beth Shalom’s main sanctuary.

The temple holds many other vaults of memory as well. A giant scroll – a Sefer Torah – sits behind a pane of glass, rescued from the Holocaust and now on permanent loan to Beth Shalom. The arc above the bimah – the sanctuary’s dais – is decorated with emblems from the history of Judaism: Struggle, life, memory, bread. On one of the sanctuary’s walls, metal leaves record the names of congregationalists past and present.

“It’s very important for us to honor those who come before us,” said Rubens. “But we also want to celebrate the future. Hanukkah is also a celebration of what’s to come.”