The Charlotte Jewish News - December 2016 - Page 26
Nine Things You Didn’t Know about Chanukah
By Julie Wiener
(MyJewishLeaming via JTA) -
Chanukah, which starts at sun
down on December 24 - Christ
mas eve - is among the most
widely celebrated Jewish holidays
in the United States. But that
doesn’t mean there is nothing new
to learn about this eight-day festi
val.
From the mysterious origins of
gelt to an Apocryphal beheading
to Marilyn Monroe, we’ve com
piled an item for each candle
(don’t forget the shammash!) on
the Chanukah menorah.
1. Gelt as we know it is a rela
tively new tradition — and no
one knows who invented it
While coins - “geh” is Yiddish
for coins, or money - have been
part of Chanukah observance for
centuries, chocolate gelt is consid
erably younger. In her book “On
the Chocolate Trail,” Rabbi Deb
orah Prinz writes that “opinions
differ” concerning the origins of
chocolate gelt: Some credit Amer
ica’s Loft candy company with
creating it in the 1920s, while oth-
Julie Wiener
ers suggest there were European
versions earlier that inspired Is
rael’s Elite candy company. Prinz
notes, as well, that chocolate gelt
resembles a European Christmas
tradition of exchanging gold-cov
ered chocolate coins “commemo
rating the miracles of St.
Nicholas.”
2. The first Chanukah celebra
tion was actually a delayed
Sukkot observance.
The second book of Maccabees
quotes from a letter sent circa 125
BCE from the Hasmoneans, the
Maccabees’ descendants, to the
leaders of Egyptian Jewry de
scribing the holiday as “the festi
val of Sukkot celebrated in the
month of Kislev rather than
Tishrei.” Since the Jews were still
in caves fighting as guerrillas in
Tishrei, 164 BCE, they had been
unable to honor the eight-day hol
iday of Sukkot, which required
visiting the Jerusalem Temple.
Hence it was postponed until after
the recapture of Jerusalem and the
rededication of the Temple. Many
scholars believe it is this - not the
Talmudic legend of the cruse of
oil that lasted eight days - that ex
plains why Chanukah is eight
days long.
3. The books of Maccabees,
which tell the story of Chanukah,
were not included in the Hebrew
Bible - but they are in the
Catholic Bible.
There are different theories ex
plaining why the first-centiuy rab
bis who canonized the scriptures
omitted the Maccabees, ranging
from the text’s relative newness at
the time to fears of alienating the
Roman leadership then in control
of Jerusalem.
4. Marilyn Monroe owned a
music-playing Chanukah meno
rah (the Marilyn Monrorah?).
When the Hollywood star con
verted to Judaism before marrying
the Jewish playwright Arthur
Miller, her future mother-in-law
gave her a menorah as a conver
sion gift. The Chanukah lamp,
which the menorah’s current
owner says Mrs. Miller brought
back from Jerusalem, has a wind
up music box in its base that plays
“Hatikvah,” Israel’s national an
them. The Marilyn menorah is
featured in the Jewish Museum in
New York City’s exhibit “Becom
ing Jewish: Warhol’s Liz and Mar
ilyn,” but sadly you cannot wind
it up.
5. The game of dreidel was in
spired by a German game played
at Christmastime that itself is an
imitation of an English and Irish
one.
Our Eastern European game of
dreidel (including the Hebrew let
ters nun, gimmel, hey, and shin) is
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directly based on the German
equivalent of the British totum
game: N = Nichts = nothing; G =
Ganz = all; H = Halb = half, and
S = Stell ein = put in. In German,
the spinning top was called a “tor-
rel,” or “tmndl.”
6. Oily food (think latkes and
sufganiyot) isn’t Chanukah’s
only culinary tradition.
Traditionally, Chanukah has in
cluded foods with cheese in
recognition of Judith, whose lib
eral use of the salty treat facili
tated a victory for the Maccabees.
7. On Chanukah, we celebrate
a grisly murder.
The aforementioned Judith had
an ulterior motive for plying the
Assyrian general Holofemes with
salty cheese: making him thirsty
so he would drink lots of wine and
pass out, enabling her to chop off
his head and bring it home with
her. The beheading - particularly
the fact that a woman carried it out
- was said to have frightened
Holofemes’ troops into fleeing the
Maccabees.
8. The next “Thanks-
givukkah” (sort of), is only 55
years away.
In 2013, the convergence of
Thanksgiving and Hanukkah on
November 28 inspired everything
from turkey-shaped menorahs to a
giant dreidel float in the Macy’s
Thanksgiving Parade. While ex
perts say a full day of Chanukah
won’t coincide with the fourth
Thursday in November for thou
sands of years, the first night of
Chanukah will fall in time for
Thanksgiving dinner (assuming
you have the meal at dinnertime
rather than in the afternoon) on
November 27, 2070.
9. The largest menorah in the
world, according to the Guinness
Book of World Records, is 32 feet
high and weighs 4,000pounds.
The Shulchan Amch stipulates
that a menorah should be no taller
than about 31 feet. Incidentally,
Guinness lists at least three other
Chanukah-related records: most
dreidels spinning simultaneously
for at least 10 seconds (734), most
people simultaneously lighting
menorahs (834) and largest dis
play of lit menorahs (1,000). We’d
like to know the most latkes ever
eaten in one sitting. ^
(Julie Wiener is the managing
editor of MyJewishLeaming.)
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