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Description
Flashcards by Andrea Pan, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Andrea Pan
about 3 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| The word Hanukkah means "dedication." | The holiday, also known as the Festival of Light, commemorates the triumph of a band of rebel Jews known as the Maccabees in reclaiming their temple from the Greek-Syrians. |
| Hanukkah lasts eight nights | The temple required a holy light to burn inside at all times, but the Jews had only enough oil for one night. Incredibly, the light burned for eight days. |
| The dates of Hannukah change each year. | Hanukkah begins on the 25th of the Hebrew lunar month of Kislev every year, but the date in the Gregorian calendar varies. The lunar calendar is shorter than the solar one, so an extra month is added to the Jewish calendar every two to three years to keep the holidays within certain agricultural seasons and times of year. This year, Hanukkah begins the evening of November 28. |
| A Menorah is lit each night of the holiday. | A Menorah is a candelabra with nine candles. Four on either side and a candle in the center intended to light all the others. This is known as the shamash and it sits higher than (or somehow apart from) the other candles. |
| A big part of Hanukkah is lighting candles | Hanukkah menorahs have nine branches, eight for each night plus a helper candle called a shamash that lights the others. Jews light the candles in the menorah from left to right, lighting a new candle, candles for the previous days, and the helper candle each night. |
| Hanukkah dishes are fried | This isn’t a coincidence, people fry their food in oil for Hanukkah as a symbol for the miracle oil that burned for eight nights straight. |
| Some Jews give money rather than gifts on Hannukah. | Traditionally, Jews celebrated Hanukkah by giving their kids and relatives gelt (money) rather than wrapped gifts. But because holiday gift-giving plays a big role for both Christians and secular people, many Jews now give and receive Hanukkah presents instead of money. |
| Children win gelt by spinning dreidels. | Dreidels are four-sided spinning tops with a Hebrew letter printed on each side representing the phrase "A Great Miracle Happened There," My Jewish Learning says. Each player spins the dreidel — then depending on the letter it falls on, they either win or lose varied amounts of gelt. |
| The Torah doesn't mention Hanukkah at all. | The Maccabean Revolt occurred after the Torah was written, so neither Hanukkah nor the events that led to it are in the sacred book. |
| There are lots of different ways to spell Hanukkah | You may have seen spellings such as Hanukkah, Hannuka or even Chanukah. This is because the word Hanukkah comes from the Hebrew alphabet which doesn’t perfectly translate to sounds in the English alphabet so it can be spelled differently. |
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