Hanukkah seems to always have a lot of symbolism attached to it. Interestingly it seems every generation of Jews has managed to interpret the Maccabee’s victory on the Greeks in a different way. We went to find out what the holiday to folks today?
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
Hanukkah seems to always have a lot of symbolism attached to it. Interestingly it seems every generation of Jews has managed to interpret the Maccabee’s victory on the Greeks in a different way. We went to find out what the holiday means to Israelis in 2013.
Jeffrey Woolf of the Talmud Department at Bar Ilan University explains that Hanukkah is above all a celebration of the Jewish triumph against persecution.
Jeffrey Woolf, Bar Ilan University:
Hanukkah symbolizes the miraculous dimension of Jewish history, that by all the rules of history we shouldn’t be here, everybody else disappeared, everybody else assimilated and left the historical stage and Jews are still here and they’re still back in their country so there’s a sense of God working behind the scenes which is one of the themes of Hanukkah too because Hanukkah, if you look at it is a story of a guerilla, successful guerilla warfare and you could describe it that way and plenty of historians do describe it that way, but the reason why Hanukkah has religious significance is because Jewish tradition saw something deeper and more profound and divine in the story.
It seems many Israeli’s relate to Hanukkah today more as the first independence holiday of the Jews, being the Maccabee’s ruled over this land for over 200-years.
Gonen Ginat, Israel Hayom:
Hanukkah is a more national holiday than a religious holiday, although there are religious rules to the holiday, but it’s common to all Israelis because we celebrate, in fact, the beginning of 200 years of Jewish sovereignty in Israel after fighting against the Greeks and expelling them out of Israel. Therefore, it’s more like the first independent holiday of the Israelis.
Avigail Lansbacher leads a group of orthodox Jews who have taken upon themselves the task to become close and understand better the secular Jews. The organization has build a huge Menorah at the Tel-Aviv Port with thousands of lights inside and every time another orthodox family hosts a secular family for candle lighting, the lights on the Menorah will get bigger and brighter.
Avigail Lansbacher, Karov LaLev:
In the past, the lighting of the Menorah was inside the houses and each family individually and now we want to show that the families will get together and the light will be much bigger if it’s done together. As Jews, will make the light bigger, making the Jews closer to each other and loving each other, understanding each other, knowing each other.
Its seems Hanukkah is also very unique because as it was the first holiday in the Jewish calendar that was created because of an historical event in the life of the Jews.
Jeffrey Woolf, Bar Ilan University:
It’s the first holiday with religious sanction that’s not mentioned in the Bible. The idea that you could do that without a prophet, there were no prophets, in fact, if you read the book of Maccabees, one of the themes there is we’re doing this until there’s a prophet, we’re doing this until there’s a prophet. Because, you know, it’s like Judaism was, it was like I was learning to ride a bike: my father, may he rest in peace, kept his hand on the seat and then let me go and all of the sudden I look around and here I’m on my own, this is something similar that happened over here. Now, all of the sudden, no more prophets and a great miracle happens, there’s no prophets to tell them and the rabbis and the religious leadership led by Matthias have to come to a decision: do we have the responsibility, can we take the initiative and create a holiday on our own, do we have that right? And they decided – Yes!
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
Hanukkah is undoubtedly one of fun Jewish holidays; just don’t just forget all the calories while eating all the traditional food soaked in oil.
For JN1 I am Ron Jacobsohn in Tel-Aviv, wishing all our viewers around the world: A Happy Hanukkah.