{"id":46,"date":"2011-12-21T09:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/?p=46"},"modified":"2012-01-04T14:49:03","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T19:49:03","slug":"the-holiday-of-hanukkah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/the-holiday-of-hanukkah\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holiday of Hanukkah"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I\u2019ve mentioned in previous posts, we in America consider this time of year (from the end of November to the beginning of January) the \u201choliday season”.\u00a0 The reason people often call this the \u201choliday season\u201d and not the \u201cChristmas season\u201d is because there are other religious\/cultural holidays celebrated during this time, even though Christmas often does take center stage<\/em>.*<\/p>\n

Yesterday was the first day of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah (also spelled as Chanukah, Chanukkah, or Chanuka).\u00a0 Even though in the United States Hanukkah is not as prominent as Christmas in terms of decorations, festivities, and the number of people celebrating the holiday, it is a holiday that is celebrated by over 5 million Jewish Americans living in this country.\u00a0 Like Christmas, there are colors associated with this holiday and those colors are blue and yellow (the colors associated with Christmas are red and green).\u00a0 There are also traditional, foods, songs, and festivities.<\/p>\n

Hanukkah is also know as the \u2018Festival of Lights\u2019 and is a celebration of the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 2nd century BCE<\/em>.** The holiday of Hanukkah is observed by the kindling (or lighting) of one candle each night, for eight nights, on a special candle stand called a Menorah.\u00a0 This is a way of remembering and celebrating how the lamp in the temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century burned for eight days even though it only had oil for one day.\u00a0 Along with the lighting of candles each night, families also celebrate this holiday with special foods (like potatoes pancakes called latkes<\/em>), games (one common game is played with a clay spinning top called a dreidel<\/em>), and by giving small presents to family members each night.<\/p>\n

Whether you are Jewish or not, if you grew up in the United States in the last 50 years you most likely learned a Hanukkah song in school about the Hanukkah dreidel game.\u00a0 Children often sing this song in their classes or holiday pageants along with Christmas carols.\u00a0 Here is a video of young children singing this song in their school holiday pageant.\u00a0 I have written the lyrics to the song the children are singing below the video so you can follow along.<\/p>\n

Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate this holiday!<\/p>\n

* ‘to take center stage’ means to be the most prominent
\n**BCE stands for B<\/strong>efore C<\/strong>ommon E<\/strong>ra and is used interchangeably with BC which stands for B<\/strong>efore C<\/strong>hrist<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mV-qYSRF0ug<\/a><\/p>\n

I have a little dreidel
\nI made it out of clay
\nAnd when it\u2019s dry and ready
\nThen dreidel I shall play<\/p>\n

Oh dreidel dreidel dreidel
\nI made it out of clay
\nAnd when it\u2019s dry and ready
\nThen dreidel I shall play<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I\u2019ve mentioned in previous posts, we in America consider this time of year (from the end of November to the beginning of January) the \u201choliday season”.\u00a0 The reason people often call this the \u201choliday season\u201d and not the \u201cChristmas season\u201d is because there are other religious\/cultural holidays celebrated during this time, even though Christmas…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}