HANUKKAH CELEBRATIONS

HANUKKAH CELEBRATIONS

Through our friend, Jane Walker, we were fortunate enough to meet her dear friends, Lorna and Jeff Cymet, in Tel Aviv.  Jeff, who worked as an international lawyer, is now a Rabbi and is founder of a Conservative Jewish shul (Yiddish word for synagogue) in Northern Tel Aviv.  We were invited to celebrate the last night (eighth night) of Hanukkah with Lorna, Jeff, their children and a number of their friends.  It was a wonderful night and we felt incredibly privileged to be invited to take part in this treasured Jewish tradition.

Alex and the boys lighting the eighth candle of the menorah.

Marcus spinning the dreidels with the other children present.

With the lovely Lorna Cymet

Large menorah's are situated throughout the city and lit up each day.

The Menorah at the Jaffa Port 

The Menorah on the street as you enter Jaffa

A group of young Jewish men with Menorah's lit up on the back of their bikes.  I'm not sure what they were doing - perhaps selling the traditional Hanukkah doughnuts?

The nightly lighting of the Menorah in the window of our favourite Jaffa gelato shop.

Hanukkah is an eight day festival of light that begins on the eve of the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev.  The festival celebrates the triumph of light over darkness and of spirituality over materialism.

More than 21 centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel.  Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth.  They drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of God.

When they sought to light the Temple's menorah (the seven branched candelabrum), they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks.  Miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under condition of ritual purity.

To commemorate and publicise these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Hanukkah (sometimes written as Chanukah).  At the heart of the festival is the nightly menorah lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and son on until the eighth night of Hanukkah, when all eight lights are kindled (taken directly from chabad.org website).

Hanukka customs include eating foods fried in oil (potato pancakes and doughnuts); playing with the dreidel (a spinning top on which are inscribed Hebrew letters that make up the acronym "a great miracle happened there); and the giving of Hanukkah gifts of money to children.

For the whole week there were doughnuts to be seen everywhere!! They are more often filled with jam and sprinkled with lots of sugar.  Not the healthiest of weeks.