Snippets of Hanukkah
Oh Hanukkah! Oh Hanukkah!
Come light the menorah!
When my grandmother, Fanny Jacobs lit her Hanukkah candles in the little village in which she was born, near Linz, Austria, her menorah was made from a half of a large potato in which her mother had scooped out nine holes to hold homemade candles, one for each night and one for the shamus.
Years later, in America, on the Lower East Side of New York, my mother lit her candles in the same manner. But, as I was growing up, each year, my parents saw to it that I always had the required 19 cents to purchase a tin menorah and a box of Hanukkah candles from my Sunday school teacher a week or so before the holiday was to begin. One year, though, I had the measles and missed the day of the sale, so my mother made me a potato menorah which I used for the entire week. As I lit my candles each night, I was sure I could see my grandmother, more than a half a century before, as a little girl in her long black dress with a white pinafore and her high black shoes, lighting her candles and reciting the blessings. Nothing had changed. We sang the same prayers. We lit the same kind of menorah.
In 1948, the year my older son, Tsvi, was born was the same year that the state of Israel was established. When he was two months old, we lit the candles for his first Hanukkah. We purchased a menorah that year "made in Israel," the first Israeli-made item in our home, later to be shared with, among other things, a pair of Shabbat candlesticks, a set of Lapin dishes, (which we still use today) and the cutest pair of happy Kibbutznik Kids salt and pepper shakers. Sometimes when all the children in the family would get together for the Hanukkah celebration, we would run out of menorot as each child would want to light his or her own. If we had time before the celebration, we would let them make their own out of clay. If not, a simple saucer would serve the purpose by allowing a few drops of hot wax to act as a holder before standing the candle upright on the dish. My brother-in-law Bernie's menorah burned real olive oil. How impressed the children were! Real oil, just like in the Holy Temple!
We'll have a party!
We'll dance the hora!
In the early stages of my deafness, I was affected by an article I had read about a school for the deaf in Washington, D. C. that installed a special hard wood floor in one of their rooms so their deaf students, dancing without shoes, could feel the beat of the music.
I have danced the hora under the trees at Brandeis Camp Institute in the Poconos and I have danced the hora in the living room of my friend, Sara Lamport's parents' home on their thick Persian rug and I have danced the hora on King David Street in Israel. The hora is a group dance, so If you have two left feet, your partner next to you will help pull them along. If you cannot hear the music, you can follow the rhythm by just following the nods of the other people's heads, the swing of their arms, the movement of their feet and most importantly, the joy in their faces, so Israeli dances do not need a special hard wood floor.
Gather round the table!
We'll give you a treat!
There is no place so pleasant for a family gathering than a round table. Our dining room table was round and the whole family: my parents, my brother and myself, my uncles and aunts and cousins, maybe a total of fourteen or fifteen would gather around that table for a family party on the night of Hanukkah that fell on Sunday. We would each light our own menorah and then shove them all carefully to the center of the table so they formed a circle of light. The roundness of our table represented the uniqueness of our family, at least on this special night. There were no sharp corners. No one took sides. Everyone saw and heard and listened to everyone else. There was no beginning. There was no end. We just went on and on and on.
Sivivon to play with!
Levivot to eat!
Sivonim and levivot are Hebrew words, the Yiddish counterparts are dreidl and latkes. In English they are tops and potato pancakes. Whichever you wish to call them, they are the symbols of Hanukkah.
When my son, Tsvi was eight years of age, he attended the Hebrew school at the West Side Jewish Center here in Los Angeles. We were active parents and volunteered to coordinate the making of 400 potato pancakes for the upcoming Hanukkah party. We invited 12 sets of parents to our home, asking them to bring their electric frying pans and lots of energy. And the fun began! Eight fathers washed the potatoes, peeled them and grated them. Eight mothers mixed the batter and performed the actual frying and a final team assisted with the cleanup. We fried, froze in layers of fifty each, a total of 400 pancakes which we planned to reheat at the Center the next Sunday. It was a superb group-we chatted and sang and told stories, entertaining ourselves while we worked. When we finished our tasks and the day was over we had sealed lifelong memories and friendships.
The dreidl with its four Hebrew letters, nun, gimel, hay and shin reveals the whole story in a nutshell: a great miracle took place there. In Israel they say, "a great miracle took place here." How right they are!
And while we are singing
The candles are burning low!
When I was young and into the late 1940's, Hanukkah candles were smooth, round and bright orange in color. Then with the formation of the state of Israel, the little multi-colored twisted candles we know now took over the market. A few years back I had an urge for the old orange type and went from Jewish store to Jewish store but could not find them; they seemed to be extinct. But my boys would make a wonderful game of sorting out the colored ones deciding beforehand which candles to light on each of the eight nights-blue and white always saved for the last night.
One for each night!
They shed a sweet light!
To remind us of days long ago!
The candles themselves are really all we needed for decorations, but when the boys were little we used to put up other adornments in honor of the holiday: streamers, cut-outs of menorahs and dreidls and one year we made a huge six feet by six feet, electric Star of David. We hung it over the TV set in the living-room so its lights could be seen through the blinds from the outside of the house.
My husband, Murrie and his brother, Bernie did all the intricate wiring and used little blue bulbs spaced about six inches apart. Both boys received a wonderful lesson in electricity from their father and uncle that year. The bulbs could have been wired in series, a simple arrangement that would have called for a minimum of connections, but if one bulb went bad, the whole Star of David went dark and we would have had to search through all the bulbs for the culprit bulb. If, however, we wired in parallel, dividing the circuit into as many paths as there were to be lights, you could spot a bad bulb immediately and easily make the replacement.
So the men decided to wire in parallel and while they were immersed in their task, I likened our Star of David to the Jewish people spread throughout the world. "If we left the wiring in series," I told Tsvi and Marty, "if a Hamen or a Hitler or a Russian Cossack (God forbid!) came along, the whole star would go out, the whole of the Jewish people would be destroyed. But, it is wired in parallel, and if only one light goes out, the rest of the bulbs become stronger and brighter as if to compensate for the one loss, until a replacement can be made- until a rebirth can occur."
One for each night!
They shed a sweet light
To remind us of days long ago!