HANUKAH

26th December 2024 – 2nd January 2025
15th December – 22nd December 2025

Jewish

Hanukah is the Jewish Festival of Lights, which celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after it was recaptured from the Syrian Greeks by the Maccabee brothers in about 162 BCE. For the eight evenings of the festival, candles are lit from right to left in a hanukkiah, a nine-branched menorah – one candle for each evening. The ninth candle is the shamash (the servant candle) from which the other candles are lit.

Foods cooked with oil – such as doughnuts and latkes (potato cakes) – are traditional to remember the miracle with oil that kept the Temple lights burning so many years ago. A game of dreidel, a special, small, spinning top, is popular with children to commemorate ‘the great miracle that happened there/here’.

Like many Jewish festivals this is a time for celebrating freedom and independence. The positioning of the lighted candles in the window is an expression of liberty, and the giving of small presents to children each day underlines the role of the family in planning for the future they might not have had.