By Nicole Sivan
Hanukkah is a beautiful time of the year in Israel and not because of the presents, there are none, and not because of festive holiday lights strung on homes, fun decorated balsam trees, or elaborately displayed store windows that entice you buy. None of these things are part of Israel’s Hanukkah holiday culture. No, Hanukkah in Israel is not at all like Christmas in America and the Israeli Hanukkah holiday has no pressure to compete with Christmas like in Christian countries. While an ex-pat may bemoan this lack of ‘holiday spirit,’ perhaps forgetting that Christmas is not a celebrated holiday here, there is something about the Israeli Hanukkah celebration that may help one recover from the lack of Santa sightings at the local mall. What can be better than jolly ‘ol Saint Nick you may ask? The answer: Sufganyiot or Israeli donuts!
Hanukkah is the story of the Miracle of Lights when the Maccabees, a band of Jewish fighters, rebelled against the rule of Antiochus IV. The story begins in 332 BC when Alexander the Great conquered the region. Although Greek monarchs ruled, Jews under Hellenistic rule were allowed to continue practicing Judaism and retain a certain degree of autonomy. Thanks to this open and benevolent style of rule, locals (Egyptians, Syrians, and Jews) quickly assimilated Hellenistic culture, language, dress, and customs—much like Jews and other immigrant and religious groups have after arriving in America.
This peaceful co-existence continued for more than 100 years until the rule of Antiochus IV in 167 BC, one of Alexander’s successors. Antiochus oppressed the Jews, prohibiting the practice of circumcision, replacing the Jerusalem Temple’s high priest with a Hellenistic priest of his choosing and ordering an altar to Zeus built in the Temple where he demanded the sacrifice of pigs, a non-kosher animal. The Jews, led by our Hanukkah hero Judah Maccabee, revolted against this oppression. The revolt was successful and in 165 AD the Maccabees cleansed and rededicated the Temple. To light the Temple Menorah, which needed to burn each night uninterrupted, oil specially purified by the high priest was required. The Maccabees only found one flask of this oil, enough to burn for just one night. Yet, a miracle occurred, and the oil burned for eight nights, exactly the amount of time it took to prepare more kosher oil. Thus is the story of Hanukkah, the celebration of the miracle of the oil, freedom from oppression and the festival of light.
Tradition on Hanukkah is to light the Hanukiah each night. It is a common outside of Israel to refer to the Hanukiah as a Menorah—a mistake almost every American Jew makes. A Menorah, which dates back to the time of the First Temple in Jerusalem, was lit each night by the Temple High Priests and has only seven candle branches. A Hanukiah is used in the celebration of Hanukkah and has eight candle branches, one for each night of Hanukkah, and one ‘Shamash,’ which is a candle branch of different height. The ‘Shamash’ candle is used to light the other candles on the Hanukiah. Other traditions for the celebration of Hanukkah include eating foods fried in oil. One of the more popular foods is latkes, or potato pancakes.
On my first Hanukkah with my husband’s family, my Israeli mother-in-law decided to make latkes, enough for the whole family, which with spouses and children equaled fifteen individuals. In order to have enough fried latkes ready for the meal she set up each person with a frying pan and a gas canister, the kind you would use when camping. We were stationed around the living room and dining room, hot oil spraying, latkes frying. While such a scene would have been perceived as pure wildness in my American family, in Israel the moment felt normal, and, more importantly, the latkes we made were delicious!
One of the more special Hanukah delicacies though, and one not often incorporated in American Hanukkah traditions, is the eating of Sufganyiot, or donuts. However, these are not like any donuts you have ever eaten at Crispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts. Israeli Sufganyiot are full, round donuts oozing with fillings from strawberry jam and buttery caramel, to chocolate ganache and vanilla crème. You cannot even begin to imagine how delicious a donut is until you have sunk your teeth into the sweet, moist bread of an Israeli sufganyiot.
Israelis don’t eat donuts the rest of the year: you will not find a donut shop anywhere in Israel. Dunkin Donuts was a complete failure here. But when the Hanukkah holiday rolls around, suddenly every coffee shop, café and bakery become donut gourmets, each one trying to top the other for the most exotic flavors. News articles and news broadcasting take time out from reporting rockets from Gaza, street fighting in Jerusalem and nuclear weapons in Iran to discuss where to find the best Hanukkah donut to taste test the culinary donut offerings of the season. One of my favorite Hanukkah donuts came from a bagel shop a block from my apartment. The lines for these fried masterpieces ran down the street and around the corner. The shop struggled to keep up with the demand but they somehow always managed to have fresh hot donuts in supply, until they were busted by a local news agency that discovered the establishment’s workers hovering over deep fryers in a nearby mall parking garage frying donuts as fast as customers were buying them. Did this deter me or any of their other loyal customers? No, of course, not. They needed the space to fry and we were all pleased at their creativity to meet our demand. Ah, only in Israel.
Wishing everyone a happy holiday season full of joy, happiness and Hanukkah light!
Follow News from JerusalemShare this page with your friends