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Hanukkah (or Chanukkah), the ancient Jewish celebration commemorating a victory over Syrian Greek oppression dating back to the Second Century BCE, began this year on Dec. 14 and concludes eight days later.
Each day is marked with special foods and gift-giving. Each evening, a candle is lit on a traditional nine-armed candle display called a menorah, one arm for each candle and a ninth for the taller candle used to light them all.
According to Rabbi Mendel Liberow, the Director of the Chabad Jewish Center of South County, the Greeks had wanted to assimilate the Jews into their culture.
“They didn’t like that Jews had their own holidays,” he said, “or that they had their own celebrations, their own beliefs, so they established many laws to oppress the Jewish people.”
Liberow said that a group of Jews known as the Maccabees fought the Greeks and forced them to retreat on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, which is the traditional start of Hanukkah. When the Jews returned to their temple, they found it “smashed and broken and desecrated.”
According to this reporter’s Jewish father, Gregory Bell, they Jews had only enough oil to light the temple’s menorah for one day, but it miraculously lasted eight nights, allowing the Maccabees could rebuild their synagogue and hold their prayers.
Another Jewish tradition during Hanukkah is to spin a toy called a “dreidel,” a four-sided spinning top. Bell said that when the Jews were slaves in hiding, the children played with the dreidel because it was very quiet.
Tamberly Bell mixes ingredients for the latkes. Photo by Adam Bell. 
Latkes cooking. Photo by Adam Bell. 
Tamberly Bell cooking the latkes, while Sandy Copas watches her. Photo by Adam Bell. 
Potato latkes. Photo by Adam Bell. 
Sandy Copas lighting the menorah. Photo by Adam Bell. 
The menorah of lights. Photo by Adam Bell.
There are a lot of different kinds of Jews, Bell said, including Orthodox Jews, Reformed Jews and Hasidic Jews.
“We are reformed Jews,” Bell said. “We celebrate the holidays and praise God. We light the candles, tend them, we hug, and we say prayers to God.”
For the Hanukkah meals, this reporter’s mother, Tamberly Bell, will make traditional Jewish dishes which she said “just taste good,” like lox with cream cheese, matzo ball soup, and potato pancakes called “latkes.”
Tamberly said she learned to make latkes in her 20s from her husband’s grandmother, Clara Bell. The recipe, she said, is simple, starting with peeling and grating four or five potatoes and mixing them with flour, egg, onion, salt, pepper, and garlic.
“You mix it all together,” Tamberly Bell said. “Then you fry it up in a pan. Cooking helps to bring the family together as we enjoy the holiday. Then, when we sit down for the meal, we all sing Adam Sandler’s Chanukah Song.
In the evening, the family also lights another candle on the menorah, and Liberow said that the candles can be a reminder that, even when the world seems so dark, that ultimately light is more powerful.
“If we come with light,” he said, “we come with love and the truth, and we will always win, just like we did back then. There’s a lot of darkness, but the light of our faith will bring goodness to the world over all the darkness that surrounds us.”
Potato Latkes recipe
3 medium sized potatoes
1 teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon pepper
1 small onion
2 eggs, well beaten
¼ cup matzo meal oil for frying
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