Some Little-Known Hanukkah Trivia
The Jewish “Festival of Lights,” Hanukkah, begins on Friday, December 8.
Hanukkah commemorates the victory of a band of rebel Jews (known as the Maccabees) in reclaiming the Jerusalem temple from the Macedonian Greeks in the 2nd century BCE.
The eight-day festival is observed by lighting menorah candles (one each night), singing Hanukkah songs, playing the game of dreidel, gift-giving, and eating oil-based foods, such as latkes and a type of jelly doughnut called sufganiyot.
Perhaps you knew all that. Here are four facts you probably don’t know about the Festival of Lights:
Happy Hanukkah, Mr. President!
The earliest Hanukkah link with the White House dates back to 1951 when Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion presented Harry Truman with a restored 200-year-old menorah.
But Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to actually participate in lighting a Hanukkah menorah on the White House grounds in 1979.
Each subsequent chief executive has commemorated the holiday in some manner, ranging from small presentations in the Oval Office to large parties with the First Family.
The Ol’ Dreidel Switcheroo
Playing the dreidel, a four-sided spinning top, is now a well-established Hanukkah tradition. But it originated as a way to deceive the aforementioned Greeks, who had outlawed Jewish scripture.
To circumvent this decree, Jewish children would keep a dreidel handy so they could quickly roll up their Torah scrolls and pretend to be merely playing games instead of studying scripture.
Gift-Giving Is (Relatively) New
The celebration of Hanukkah dates back almost 2200 years, but the Jewish-American tradition of giving gifts began sometime in the late-19th century.
Initially, only coins were gifted to children on the holiday; presents were reserved for Purim.
In the 1920s, merchants began advertising their wares in Yiddish newspapers as suitable gifts for the Festival of Lights. But the custom really gained traction in the 1950s, as the sharp climb in consumerism raised the Hanukkah’s profile as a child-centered alternative to Christmas.
There’s No “Wrong” Way to Spell It
So is it Hanukkah, Chanukah, Hannuka, Hanukah, Hanukka….? The list of alternative spellings seems endless. (Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary lists 24 different options.)
While the most common spelling is Hanukkah, all the various spellings are considered correct. The confusion arises because the original Hebrew does not smoothly transliterate into English. Some Hebrew sounds do not exist in English, such as the initial consonant of the original Hebrew word.
So, you could say there’s only one “right” way to spell Hanukkah – but only in Hebrew.
Happy חֲנֻכָּה!
Sources:
Featured Image: Adobe, License Granted
Truman Library Institute
The Kollel
The Detroit Jewish News
Sefaria
Antidote