Hanukkah: A Short History on the Festival of Lights

The leaves are falling and the weather is getting colder, which means the holidays are finally arriving. While some are preparing for Christmas or Kwanzaa, others are getting ready for Hanukkah. “The holidays are about the joy and taking a break,” said Adriana Alvarez.

Hanukkah is a Jewish festival celebrated for eight days every year. It recognizes the story of the rededication of the temple in 165 B.C. when the Maccabees defeated the Syrians. It usually starts between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Because the Jewish tradition counts days by sunset, it begins this year on the evening of December 22, which falls on the 25th of Kislev, the ninth month on the Hebrew calendar.

A main tradition is lighting the menorah every night during the eight days. This is one of the reasons why it’s called the Jewish Festival of Lights. “On a dark Hanukkah night, you light a candle,” said Elizabeth Rodriguez.

The candles are on a base called a menorah. There are nine pillars in total on a menorah. Eight of them represent the number of days that the temple lantern burned and the ninth one in the middle, or the shamash, is used to light the others. On these eight days, people also participate in playing a dreidel game or baking traditional foods.

Like Christmas, people exchange gifts. In this case they would be called gelt gifts. It only became a common practice in the middle of the last century when immigrants started merging traditions from different sources.