Hannukah

I seem to have caused some confusion with the timing of last week’s post (The wolf pack.) If you missed it, you can read it by accessing my blog:

https://benisisraelinewsletter.blogspot.com/

I will try to get back to the regular Thursday routine this week.

 

My kibbutz, very much like many kibbutzim, functions as a self-contained community.

For almost a hundred years our internal news and general information has been disseminated in print form. The “Diary” evolved from a simple stencilled newssheet to a proper news and opinion bulletin. In the digital era the “Diary” complements an internal online application called “Community-Net.” The application operates 24/7 and provides a continuous stream of internal and regional information. It also serves as an opinion forum.

Understandably, many of our old-timers are not smartphone savvy, so they rely more on the “Diary” for information. In addition, the kibbutz archives management prefers the printed “Diary” to the nebulous “Community-Net.”

This lengthy and convoluted preamble serves to explain that news of our Hannukah celebrations were conveyed via the two news and information channels mentioned above and a notice-board in the kibbutz dining room.

The opening Hannukah celebration was held in the square by Beit Lavi on Sunday evening. Beit Lavi is the hall mentioned two weeks ago in the “White Elephants” post. Throughout the eight days of Hannukah other festive events will be held in and around the kibbutz.

On Sunday the programme included original content and a good admixture of the traditional Hannukah texts and songs about the wars, victories and miracles.

There were no war correspondents following Yehuda Maccabi and his brothers into battle. So, there are no live-time accounts, only later references.

Well, there are the four Books of the Maccabees, but only the first two books contain relevant references.

“The Triumph of Judas Maccabeus.” Rubens

ncidentally, none of the Books of Maccabees are included in the Hebrew canon, because it was finalised about a generation before the Maccabean revolt.

However, I’m told that the revolt  appears in some manuscripts of the Septuagint (the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew) The first two books only are part of canonical scripture in the Septuagint and the Vulgate (a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.)The Vulgate became the Catholic Church's officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible. So they  are canonical to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and are included in he Protestant Apocrypha.

Most of us will need to read the last paragraph a few times in order to comprehend it fully.

Ironically the Books of Maccabees were preserved only by the Christian church and were belatedly resurrected by Jewish scholars. The “Church Fathers” treasured the books on account of a particular attribute.

It’s recorded that St. Augustine wrote in “The City of God” that they were preserved for their accounts of the martyrs. This suggests that in antiquity, IV Maccabees, dealing almost exclusively with martyrdom, may have been the most highly regarded of the four books.

 

Hannukah is also known as the festival of lights, a title derived from the lighting of the Temple lamp after the rededication of the Temple.

However, the earliest mention of the miraculous cruse of oil is in a Baraita (an external addendum to the Babylonian Talmud), recorded hundreds of years after the Maccabean revolt. The same source omits the battle narrative completely. One explanation for the omission is that the devastation wreaked by the Romans in Judea following the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), a tragic event that was still fresh in the historical memory of the authors of the Baraita.

A number of historians stress the internecine feuding between the Maccabees and Hellenized sector of the population that aggravated an already chaotic situation prior to the Maccabean revolt.   

 

Realising that I will be accused of being a joy-killing iconoclast if I doubt the miracle of the cruse of oil, this Hannukah too I’ll eat my latkes, sufganiyot and other gastronomical delights without protest and without giving a thought to the fact that

Hannukah’s gastronomical delights are also a weightwatcher’s nightmare.

 

I think it’s apt here to include a margin note about miracles:

"A miracle is an event described by those to whom it was told by people who did not see it." Wrote Elbert Green Hubbard (June 19, 1856 – May 7, 1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Hubbard and his wife were in dire need of a miracle to save them. They died aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.

 

We aren’t the only people that has a festival of lights.

Diwali the festival of lights, is one of the major holidays of Hinduism and is also celebrated in Jainism and Sikhism. The five-day festival marks the beginning of the Hindu New Year and occurs during the final three days of the “dark half” of the lunar month Ashvina and the first two days of the “light half” of the month of Karttika in the Vikrama calendar (one of the liturgical lunisolar calendars used in Hinduism); it occurs in late October or November of the Gregorian calendar. A row of lamps is lit to request Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune, to come to earth and bring auspicious blessings for the coming year. 

There are of course other “light festivals” most are unrelated to any religious event.

In normal times “The Jerusalem Festival of Light” is held annually in June. It lasts a week and displays the work of leading international artists who use light as their creative medium.

In 2011, the festival, located in and around Jerusalem's Old City drew over 200,000 visitors. In 2012 the show was extended into other neighbourhoods of the Old City.

Oil wasn’t only the fuel for the Temple lamp that evolved to become the traditional Hannukiah. It gave rise to the many oil-based Hannukah gastronomical delights.

Undoubtedly one of Israel’s most popular bakeries, Café Kadosh in Jerusalem comes out with unique new varieties of a beloved Hanukkah treat each year: the sufganiyah. A round donut/doughnut that is typically filled with jam, pastry cream or custard.

For Jewish communities around the world, the tradition of eating fried foods during the Festival of Lights means holiday tables can feature fried meat, sweet and savoury fritters and any kind of doughnut/donut iteration imaginable. Keftes de Prasa (leek fritters) are a Sephardic holiday staple They originated in the Iberian Peninsula but can also be found in Turkish, Greek and Middle Eastern cuisine.

Buñuelos, also known as bimuelos or bumuelos in Ladino, originated in Spain and Portugal and have become popular desserts in Latin American countries. You can find them served at Colombian or Mexican restaurants. They are commonly eaten by Sephardic Jews during Hannukah because, you guessed it, they are fried in oil.

As you have probably surmised, I am quoting authoritative sources. I can hardly boil an egg without professional help.

 

Happy Hanukkah and take care.

 

Beni,                                                               2^nd of December, 2021