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CHANUKAH AROUND THE WORLD: |
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Chanukah is observed with joy and celebration in Jewish communities around the world. Like the Hannukiya, there are many similarities that join these celebrations but also some elements that add unique light to the holiday. 1) In Alsace, a region of France, double decker Chanukah menorahs were common with space for 16 lights. The two levels, each with spots for 8 lights, allowed fathers and sons to join together as they each lit their own lights in one single Hannukiya. 2) There is a custom of placing your Hannukiya in a place where people will be able to view the lights burning and appreciate the miracle of the holiday. In some Jerusalem neighborhoods, there are spaces cut into the sides of buildings so people can display them outside. Historically in countries like Morroco and Algeria, and even some communities in India, it was customary to hang a Hannukiya on a hook on a wall near the doorway on the side of the door across from the mezuzah. 3) In Yemenite and North African Jewish communities, the seventh night of Chanukah is set aside as a particular women’s holiday commemorating Hannah whose sacrificed seven sons rather than give in to the Greek pressure to abandon Jewish practice and in honor or Judith, Yehudit, whose seduction and assassination of Holofernes, the Assyrian emperor Nebuchadnezzar's top general, led to Jewish military victory. 4) In Santa Marta, Columbia, Chavurah Shirat Hayyam an anusim community returning to Judaism after several hundred years, has started their own traditional Chanukah recipe, instead of eating fried potato latkes, they eat Patacones, or fried plantains.
5) The Hebrew letters on the dreidle, nun, gimel, hey, shin, are today associated with the acronym for the Hebrew words for “a Great Miracle Happened There.” But originally those letters were associated with the spinning top that was favored by Jews in European countries where Yiddish was spoken because they corresponded with the rules of the dreidle game N=nichts=nothing G=ganz=everything H=halb=half S=stell ein=put one in. |
6) The Ethiopian and parts of Indian Jewish communities split off from the larger Jewish community in ancient time before Chanukah was established as a Jewish holiday. They only began celebrating Chanukah in modern times, when their communities were reunited with other Jewish communities. 7) In 1839, thousands of Jews fled Persia, where the Muslim authorities began forcibly converting them, and settled in Afghanistan. While some of them lived openly as Jews, others hid their Jewish identity. When Chanukah time came around they would not light a special menorah, which would attract the notice of Muslim neighbors, but would fill little plates with oil and set them near each other. If neighbors stopped by, they could simply make the Hannukiyah disappear by spreading the plates around the house. 8) The rich culinary traditions of the Moroccan Jewish community knew not of potato latkes or jelly doughnuts but rather favor the citrusy flavors of the Sfenj doughnut, which was made with the juice, and zest of an orange. Notably, from the early days of nation building in Israel, the orange came to be associated with the holiday of Chanukah as the famed Jaffa oranges came into season in time for the holiday celebrations. Share your Chanukah traditions... |