Hanukkah is the Jewish festival of lights, a wintertime celebration that lasts eight days, this year from December 12th-20th.
Are you wondering why Hanukkah is on a different date each year? It’s because it always falls on the same date on the Hebrew Calendar – the 25th day of the month of Kislev. Because the Jewish calendar is both solar and lunar (our standard calendar is just solar), the dates on both calendars don’t correspond directly.
Hanukkah is celebrated each night by lighting a menorah in the evening (with one candle the first night, two the second night, and so on), singing songs and saying special prayers, and eating fried foods like sufganiyot (jelly donuts) and latkes (potato pancakes).
Hanukkah celebrates a miracle that occurred in the 2nd century BCE, wherein the Jews, led by Judah the Maccabee, tried to light the Temple menorah but had only a small amount of oil. The story says that the oil lasted eight days until they could procure more oil.
Hanukkah is celebrated by playing dreidel, a four-sided spinning top game played with a pot of coins.
Participants receive sweets, usually in the form of chocolate coins, called gelt.
