We are thrilled to have one of our favorite authors Guest Blog for us today! Thank you, Jeri Westerson! Happy Hanukkah to you and yours!
My Personal Hanukkah…With a Bit of Medieval Thrown in
By Jeri Westerson
Back in the days when I was a kid in school, I was more or less the token Jew. So every year I was asked by grade school teachers to give a presentation of the meaning of Hanukkah. And I was only too glad to do it, because I was a little tired of the well-meaning wishes that exhorted me to celebrate my “Jewish Christmas.”
I brought with me a tiny menorah, that eight-branched candelabra, one small enough to use birthday 
candles in it. I explained to my fellow classmates that each candle represented a day, and each day a miracle. That God allowed that the oil that was only enough to burn for one day miraculously burned for eight days in order to consecrate the Temple. I went on about the Maccabee brothers, showed how to play Dreidel, even led them in song with “Hanukkah, O Hanukkah.” You know the one. It goes like this:
Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah, come light the Menorah
Let’s have a party; we’ll all dance the hora
Gather round the table, we’ll all have a treat
Sivivon to play with, and levivot to eat.
And while we are playing
The candles are burning low
One for each night, they shed their sweet light
To remind us of days long ago-o-o-o.
One for each night, they shed their sweet light
To remind us of days long ago.
Sivivon are dreidels and levivot are potato pancakes.
My audience of grade schoolers were vaguely interested in these proceedings…until I mentioned that we got presents for EIGHT DAYS! Heads perked up. But don’t get excited. These were usually small gifts, 
chocolate money or real money called Hanukkah Gelt (that’s Yiddish for Hanukkah money) and little toys. Gift giving was very recent in terms of the timeline. It was more in response to the Gentile neighbors giving gifts for Christmas as Hanukkah always falls near Christmas, though the date changes. It can be as early as November and as late as the very end of December. That’s because Jews follow the lunar calendar which tracks the phases of the moon and the all the feasts and holidays are moveable (ever wonder why Easter moves around? It has to follow Passover, right? Be kind of silly if it didn’t.)
So what’s behind Hanukkah, anyway? Hanukkah, or the Dedicating of the Temple, or the Festival of Lights, comes from something called the Megillit Antiochus or the Scroll of Antioch, dating from somewhere between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE. The Books of Maccabees talks about a re-dedication of the Temple by Judah Maccabee, his brothers, and his army, but never specifically mentions a miracle, only that the celebration should last for eight days, which, indeed, most Jewish holidays do. (In Jewish numerology, Seven is the perfect number: seven days of creation, seven days of the week. But the number eight–God–is beyond perfect. Eight days old a boy is circumcised and brought into the covenant. Eight days for most Jewish celebrations.) It is this scroll that gives us the story of the miracle of the oil.
The Story: Around 175 BCE, Antiochus IV Epiphanes King of Greek Syria and other places, ruled over the Jews and outlawed Judaism, ordering a statue of Zeus to be erected in the temple. Not nice. The Maccabees revolted, won, and worked to reconsecrate the Temple, getting all that nasty gentile stuff out of there, building a new altar, etc. In order for the re-dedication to be complete, the menorah or candelabrum or multi-burning oil lamp was to burn for seven nights, but there was only enough consecrated oil to burn for one day and there was no time to get more. But it miraculously burned for eight days. Thus the eight day celebration.
In the Middle Ages, the Megillit Antiochus was read aloud in synagogues, a rabbinically declared holiday and a tale about Jews rising up against their oppressors. As you can imagine, such stories were pretty popular amongst Jews in the Middle Ages when they were always being oppressed. Jews reenacted the lighting of a menorah in the synagogues as well as in their homes. The proper way to light a menorah is to have it in a doorway. Not quite practical, so the next best thing is to have it in a window, fulfilling the rabbis decree to show the miracle to the world (which is why there are all those public displays of menorah lighting. It is NOT the Jewish answer to a public lighting of a Christmas tree. If anything, it’s the other way around.) Though for all that, Hanukkah was never a huge holiday. It was just one of many. Certainly not a High Holy Day like Rosh Hashonnah (Jewish New Year) or Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). It was another reminder to Jews of God’s miracles and His dedication to the Chosen People no matter where they found themselves and under what circumstances.
It is the Eastern European tradition of eating foods cooked in oil, foods such as latkes (potato pancakes) and donuts that make it especially fun. Can’t knock that. Playing the dreidel, a top with Hebrew letters on each of the four sides, is supposed to be a reflection of a game that the Maccabees played while waiting to attack their enemies. It’s like dice. It’s a gambling game. And very, very old.
So, a bit of old traditions blended with newer. That’s what makes a holiday in any language.
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Jeri Westerson writes a medieval mystery series featuring disgraced knight turned detective Crispin Guest. You can read excerpts of her books at www.JeriWesterson.com.
Below are Jeri Westerson’s Books
And her latest book the recently released Troubled Bones
Thank-you Jeri for the brief history. I learned something new today and I have only been up 45 minutes.
Happy Hanukkah one and all!
Thanks for inviting me, Cheryl and Jerelyn! Always a pleasure to be here.
I am so glad to see you here at PBS again, Jeri. I enjoy the interviews with you and your insights to history… I still need to get your books so I can read them! I think I need to break down and buy them, as they haven’t yet come through PBS for me!