Oy Chanukah, Oy Chanukah!
Please join us for the annual BAJC Chanukah Party on Friday December 23. We will start at 5:00 pm with an hour of story and study; we’ll look at how the story of Chanukah is told in the Books of the Maccabees and after, and what it means to us now in this era of zealotry and intolerance. Then at 6:00 pm we’ll light Shabbat candles – it’s the day before Chanukah really begins, so (sadly) we won’t be lighting our Chanukiot (menorahs) this year.
We’ll sing Shabbat blessings and a Chanukah song. Then we’ll feast on latkes (potato pancakes), applesauce and sour cream, with veggies side dishes and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) and chocolate gelt for dessert. After our latke feast we’ll hear and share stories of the season.
At 7:00 pm the band will be in the sanctuary, where Cantor Kate will lead a sing-along of a wide range of Chanukah songs. The floor will be open for impromptu dancing! Meanwhile, the kids will have place upstairs to play dreidel. We hope you can join us.
Brattleboro Area Jewish Community is located at 151 Greenleaf Street in West Brattleboro. Call 802-257-1959 or email us at info@bajcvermont.org.
Category: Learn Something New
I never heard of Chanukiot before. I’ve always heard people talk about menorahs… are they different words for the same thing, or is there some qualitative difference between them? Is one more formal?
menorah vs. chanukiot
The first Jewish menorah was the one with 7 branches that was lit by Kohanim (priests) at the Holy Temple during Biblical times in Jerusalem. It is the symbol of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.
The 9 branch menorah, called in Hebrew ‘Chanukiot’, is used only during the holiday of Chanukah. It was created to commemorate the victory of the Jewish Maccabees over the Greco/Syrians in 165 B.C.E. and the miraculous burning of a one day supply of oil (in the 7 branch menorah!) for eight days. On the Chanukah menorah, eight of the arms are for the candles which represent the 8 miracle days, and the ninth arm is for the candle used to light the others. That special ninth arm is called the “shamash,” and it is usually placed above the other arms, although sometimes it can be found to the side or below the others.
Got it!
Thanks for the lesson!
I guess I’m really more familiar with the Chanukiot, but didn’t know it. : )
A great miracle happened there
It was when I came to understand so many years ago that the Jews, Christians and Muslims are essentially the tripartite of the same ship of state, I coined the term Jukrislims.
The miraculous events seen in the eyes of believers run through the Jewish religion(s) in a long thread terminating with the Muslim religion(s). In this Jewish holiday the idea that a one-day supply of burning oil “miraculously” lasts for eight days is akin to taking a handful of fish to feed the “five-thousand.”
Miracle after miracle, raising the dead, the talking burning bush, bringing down fire from the sky, the ascension of prophets up to the sky, etc., goes on and on throughout our common era, which, to this day is dominated by the purveyors of these stories, the Jukrislims.
Chanukiot is really a variant spelling of the better known hanukiah, and in modern Hebrew, the lamp is called chanukkiyah. However, the Book of Maccabees and Hanukkah are not accepted as Jewish scripture.