Celebrating Chanukah

Elizabeth Zelvin

Last night was the first night of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. It celebrates a miracle in the story of the Maccabees, a band of brothers who fought against oppressors of the Jews during one of many such periods in Jewish history (in this case, the second century BC). The bad guys had sacked the Temple in Jerusalem, the most holy place of the Jews. The desecration included letting the sacred flame, which was supposed to burn continuously, go out. The good guys cleaned the place up and relit the lamp, but there was only enough oil for it to burn for one night. By a miracle, the flame lasted for eight nights, until help and supplies arrived.

That is why we celebrate Chanukah by lighting the special candelabra called the menorah, starting with one candle on the first night and adding another candle each night until the whole menorah glows on the eighth night. The menorah actually has nine branches, not eight. The extra candle, the shammash (which in my family was always pronounced shammas), is used to light the others. My goyische husband has to be reminded every year that the candles must never be extinguished, but burn down and go out on their own. This requires some planning to avoid going out (or if possible, leaving the room) while the candles are burning. Celebrate, yes; burn the house down, no.

Like reading Hebrew, lighting the menorah is done backwards, from right to left. (Or do I only think that’s backwards because I’m lefthanded?) We sing a special blessing over the candles, and if children are present, they get Chanukah gelt (gold). When I was a kid, the gelt was actual money. Then the fashion changed, maybe to avoid raising overly mercenary children, and the usual payoff was chocolates shaped like coins and wrapped in gold foil. In these health-conscious times, the pendulum is swinging the other way. The last couple of years, I’ve been getting gold (or at least gold-colored) one dollar coins at the bank to give my granddaughters.

Some Jewish American families give Chanukah presents. If the children had their way, they’d get one present on the first night, two on the second night, three on the third…for a total of 36 presents. It doesn’t happen, but the kids keep trying. It’s traditional to eat foods made with oil, particularly latkes. You’ve gotta love a religion that makes eating potato pancakes a pious observance.

In fact, Chanukah is a minor holiday, rather than a high holy day. It’s only become such a big event in America because it was so hard on Jewish children to see their non-Jewish friends enjoying all the excitement and abundance of Christmas. When I was growing up, we celebrated Christmas with stockings and presents and a tabletop tree (an artificial silver one, popular during the Fifties) hung with ornaments.
As we got older, we became more aware of Chanukah. But when we were little, my mother didn’t think we’d find it exciting enough, compared to Christmas. In later years, my mom denied all this—a perfect example of selective amnesia.

In our ecumenical family today, we celebrate both holidays. I love trimming the tree and celebrating peace and love. But I love lighting the Chanukah candles too, and celebrating freedom, hope, and my Jewish heritage.

Reading and the Holidays

Elizabeth Zelvin

Holiday shopping season is upon us, and not only do books make wonderful presents (to give and to receive), but books also played a part in shaping my perceptions and expectations of the holidays. I suspect that this is true for many people.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the great opening line of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women: “ ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.’” Yes, all the way back in 1870, there was no surer way to disappoint a child than not to provide Christmas presents. Thanks to Alcott’s high moral Transcendentalist principles, what the March girls actually do is quit complaining, decide to put their annual one-dollar spending money into presents for their mother instead of treats for themselves, and end up giving away their festive holiday breakfast to an impoverished immigrant family with too many children. Generations of American girls have internalized the lessons in that story.

I can’t remember the name of the 1950s children’s book in which the family had a tradition of reading Dickens’s A Christmas Carol aloud on Christmas Eve, but the idea of such a tradition has stuck with me all these years. I also remember that the youngest boy was in the choir, and there was great tension about whether he would be able to hit the high note in his solo, “Glory to God in the highest,” presumably from Handel’s Messiah. (He did.) I shouldn’t have been paying attention to Christmas at all as a kid, but my Jewish parents were so afraid we’d feel deprived if we couldn’t participate in the general fuss that we decorated what we facetiously called a “Chanukah bush” and got stockings stuffed with presents on Christmas morning. Today, I’m sure there’s an abundance of books about Jewish families celebrating Chanukah and other holidays, but I don’t remember any back then.

In my ecumenical present-day family, we celebrate both holidays. I must admit that rather than reading aloud, we watch movies made from the great books already mentioned: Alastair Sims as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and the Gillian Armstrong version of Little Women, which my husband and I both like in spite of the the terrible miscasting of Winona Ryder as Jo. I recently learned that an old friend from college and her family read Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales aloud every year. So I know that the tradition of holiday reading does survive.

No gift list in our family is complete unless it includes at least one book. Bookstore gift certificates are also a guaranteed successful present, but I, for one, am not happy unless there’s at least one fat hardcover by a favorite mystery author that I wouldn’t have bought for myself under the tree, so I can curl up on the couch with it at some time during the long, lazy day. Books are the present of choice for my stepdaughter and her husband, who live in London, because we can order just what they want from their amazon.co.uk wish lists and have them shipped free. Talk about books I’d never order for myself! And one of the great shopping pleasures these days is buying books for my granddaughters. In the 21st century, there are children’s books about everything. On my last visit the almost-two-year-old had me read her one entitled It’s Potty Time, with separate illustrated editions for boys and girls, and it’s only one of dozens on the subject.

What books are on your holiday gift list? What books, if any, shaped your image of how holidays should be?