We grew up in Taiwan, and we knew that Christmas was coming from an early age. How could we miss it? Especially after becoming parents and seeing how excited our children were. Before, we introduced the original prototype of Santa Claus, which came from Turkey, not Scandinavia or America. Today, let’s introduce another festival that most Taiwanese are unfamiliar with: Jewish Hanukkah (also spelled Hanukah/Chanukah) 🕎.
Like our Lunar New Year, the Jewish festival of “Hanukkah” or “Hanukkah” changes every year. This year (at the time of writing, in 2016), it will be celebrated from the evening of December 24th for eight consecutive days until the early morning of January 1st. But why is it celebrated for eight days?
Here’s how it all started:
In the 2nd century BC, the area of present-day Israel was conquered by the Greek army. The second ruler was not as enlightened as the first and forced all Jews to convert from monotheism to Greek polytheism. Many temples were destroyed and rebuilt during this time. This move caused dissatisfaction among the devout Jewish people. However, there’s a saying that the Jews were divided into two factions at that time: the pro-Greek and the conservative factions. The military suppression incident was a result of infighting between these two factions.
The Jewish peasant soldiers, led by the Maccabees, successfully wiped out the large Greek army and restored order to the temple. Just as they were rebuilding the most important temple, they discovered that they needed to relight the holy fire, similar to the concept of lighting a lamp. The fuel used in the temple had to be extracted directly from the olive tree and could only be used after religious ceremonies. The entire production process took eight days.
When everyone was worried about the holy flame going out, a miracle occurred. The fuel that originally lasted only one day burned for a full eight days! And that’s why Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days!
There is an animated version of this story available, with a painting style that is particularly attractive to young boys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-mM_p0SlXE&t=4s
Today, Jews continue to celebrate Hanukkah, just as we did when we were children.
One popular game played during Hanukkah is the game of dice using a “Dreidel top.” Playing with a Dreidel top is a must during Hanukkah!
The Dreidel top has four sides, each with a Hebrew letter:
נ (nun), ג (gimel), ה (hei), and ש (shin).
These four letters together form an acronym for the phrase “Nes Gadol Haya Sham,” which means “a great miracle happened there.”
So in class, we also made our own Dreidel, using grains as chips, and played Dreidel! Maybe next time, during the Chinese New Year, everyone can play this way at home!
Here are many Dreidel templates and gameplay rules available for reference.
