{"id":1134,"date":"2020-12-10T17:16:23","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T17:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2021-01-14T14:31:50","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T14:31:50","slug":"hanukkah-sameach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/2020\/12\/10\/hanukkah-sameach\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanukkah Sameach!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1137 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/11\/hannukah-stamp.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"255\" height=\"197\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hanukkah (10-18 December) celebrates the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the 160s BC. After outlawing the Jewish religion and Jewish practices, King Antiochus IV decreed that Jews must worship Greek gods in the Temple. The word \u2018Hannukah\u2019 means dedication and commemorates the triumph of a band of rebel Jews known as the Maccabees in reclaiming their temple from the Greek-Syrians.<\/p>\n<p>Hanukkah\u00a0celebrates freedom from oppression. It also supports and celebrates freedom of religious expression. The celebration lasts for eight nights, to commemorate how long the holy light burned.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1136 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/11\/dreidel.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" \/>Hanukkah gifts include gold gelt coins (traditional chocolate coins in gold foil), a dreidel (a four-sided spinning top) and handwritten blessings to say as the\u00a0Hanukkah\u00a0candles are lit. The Greek-Syrians had outlawed Jewish studies, so the Jews spun dreidels to pretend they were merely playing games while they engaged with their scripture.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1140 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/11\/menorah2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" height=\"202\" \/>A Menorah (a candelabra with nine candles) is lit for each night of the holiday. Four on either side and a candle in the centre intended to light all the others. This is known as the\u00a0<em>shamash<\/em>\u00a0and it sits higher than (or somehow apart from) the other candles.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1138 alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/11\/latke.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1135 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/11\/doughnut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"227\" height=\"166\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The miracle of the oil lasting eight days is not only celebrated through the lighting of the menorah, but also in the traditional foods that are eaten \u2013 latkes (potato pancakes), sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), apple fritters, kugel (baked pudding made from egg noodles or potato).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hanukkah (10-18 December) celebrates the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the 160s BC. After outlawing the Jewish religion and Jewish practices, King Antiochus IV decreed that Jews must worship Greek gods in the Temple. The word \u2018Hannukah\u2019 means dedication and commemorates the triumph of a band of rebel Jews known as the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/2020\/12\/10\/hanukkah-sameach\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Hanukkah Sameach!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":572,"featured_media":1141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annual-celebration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1134"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1145,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions\/1145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}