HAKOL - Chanukah 2019

DECEMBER 2019 | KISLEV/TEVET 5780

Chanukah, oh Chanukah, come light the menorah!

It’s Chanukah Time at JDS!

By Joanna Powers JDS Director of Hebrew and Judaics

Jewish Community Center Come celebrate Chanukah with us at the JCC of the Lehigh Valley. This year’s event will be “8 Crazy Stations for 8 Crazy Nights” with activities for the whole family, held on Sunday, Dec. 22, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. The event will conclude with our annual community candle lighting as we welcome in the first night of Chanukah. Refreshments include latke tasting, donut decorating and a hot cocoa bar, and craft projects feature dreidel spin art and even a sensory olive press table. If you like to build, we will also be building Lego menorahs! We’ll learn how Jewish people around the world celebrate Chanukah with our community shlicha, Rotem, and listen to live music performed by the Jewish Day School band. Admission is $6 per person (free for children under 3).

It seems like we just took down our sukkah and are still getting used to the start of the winter chill, but before we know it, we will be celebrating one of our school’s favorite holidays, Chanukah! This year, we will pack most of our festivities into the one day of Chanukah when school is in session, but that will be after weeks of learning about the history and traditions of the holiday and making a slew of fantastic projects to enhance our celebration in school and at home.

We aren’t just spreading Chanukah happiness amongst ourselves. The students will be sending homemade Chanukah cookies in custom decorated bags to Jewish Family Service and beautiful personalized cards to residents at Country Meadows to brighten their holiday.

As Chanukah approaches, we invite the community to join us for our Bollywood Pre-Chanukah Dinner on Wednesday, Dec. 18, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. It will be an evening of delicious food and holiday excitement!

On our one special Chanukah day at school, we will be starting the day with Chanukah music flowing through the speakers and our big silver chanukiah lit brightly in our lobby. Our Hebrew and Judaics teachers will turn each class into a party! Lunchtime will raise the revelry even higher. We will hold unique dreidel competitions, string menorah necklaces and play holiday music and movement games. Other activities will include Chanukah puzzles and cracking a secret Maccabee message code. There will be non-stop fun! It’s no wonder Chanukah is a schoolwide favorite!

(610) 882-8800 • embassybank.com Or Visit Any of Embassy’s Convenient Offices Valleywide 2 DECEMBER 2019 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HAPPY CHANUKAH

The Holiday of the Holidays Festival

By Rotem Bar Community Shlicha The Northern city of Haifa is a center of co-existence between religions, cultures and people. Haifa is a beautiful northern port city that extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the north slope of Mount Carmel. It is also the third largest city in Israel and is often called “the capital of the North.” Haifa is an important industrial and cultural center and holds one of Israel’s main maritime trade centers. Its residents are both Jewish and Arab who live side by side and make this city very special. The city is also home to the special Baha’i gardens, rich of history and culture, and every year during the month of December, those things that make her so special are in the spotlight.

When people say Haifa and December in the same sentence, the immediate association I get is to lights on the streets, illuminated menorahs next to fir trees, colorful lights dangling from the windows of houses and lit decorations of snowmen and moose and the smell of warm chestnuts alongside Chanukah donuts and traditional Knafeh. Some are things that might be

common in other parts of the world, but not everywhere in Israel, and not mixed with different faiths’ holiday symbols.

Haifa in December is so beautiful, romantic and mainly so different. There is something so calm about her, something that feels right, and something that makes people really smile to one another, instead of being suspicious or afraid.

Every year in December, the city of Haifa holds a festival called “The Holiday of the Holidays Festival.” It is intended to express the character of Haifa as a mixedpopulated city, where all religions live in co-existence and tolerance. The name of the festival expresses its intention to mark the religious holidays that take place in December and around it: Chanukah, Christmas, Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, which fall at varying times throughout the civil year and may fall in December, according to the Muslim calendar.

In the beginning, the festival focused mainly on outdoor art, and on meetings between Jews and Arabs.

Over the years, the festival slightly changed. Besides the fact that Ramadan fled for the summer period (once every 30 years the three holidays will meet again for another

three years), the festival has evolved and expanded into a celebration of all cultures in the country in general and in Haifa in particular.

Festival activities take place on the weekends of December. They exist at various sites in the city, but most of them take place in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood and in the German Colony neighborhood. During the festival days, the city's museums are free to all visitors. Activi-

ties include shows, parades, concerts, art exhibitions and street performances, tours and conferences, fairs and markets and special activities for children.

The Holiday of Holidays Festival will mark its 26th year in Haifa this month, and the city will once again show its unique beauty and good neighborliness. Tens of thousands of visitors will come to the city to attend the festival's events and

enjoy the diversity, hear both Arabic and Hebrew, enjoy the scents of roasted black coffee, warm chestnuts, pastries straight from the oven, Arabian sweets with a winter sea breeze (which you actually wait to feel in such a hot climate country as Israel), and celebrate a colorful and joyous street celebration full of light. There is really no place like Haifa, I guarantee it!

Happy holidays, everyone.

From the Board & Staff of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley GARY FROMER President

JERI ZIMMERMAN Executive Director

HAPPY CHANUKAH | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | DECEMBER 2019 3

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Chanukah dreidel

Left, Itamar Ben-Avi and David Yeshaya Silberbusch. Right, “Child with a Teetotum” by Jean Simeon Chardin.

By Rachel Neiman Israel21c It’s Chanukah! In Israel, city streets are decorated with LED menorahs, office-mates toast the holiday with platefuls of jelly doughnuts (sufganiyot) and potato pancakes (levivot). And even in this age of video games, children still play – at least for a few minutes – a floor game with a four-sided spinning top known in Hebrew as a sevivon (dreidel in Yiddish).

But where did this holiday game come from?

It did not originate in Israel, where sevivonim are inscribed with the letters: nun, gimel, heh and peh, standing for ness gadol hayah poh, “A great miracle happened here.” In the Diaspora, the fourth side of the sevivon was for generations marked with a shin for the word sham — “A great miracle happened there.”

According to Israeli collector Rachel Bar Lev, “The top is not Jewish in origin, and its connection to Chanukah is late.” She notes that archeologists have found tops dating back to as early as 2000 BCE. “The tops most widely known in Israel are those with four sides, but around the world there are also tops with six and eight sides …

Tops are also used in gambling. On such tops you can find letters instructing the player to pay the others, take the winnings, etc. … So, for example, in Italy, the letters P, O, M, N are on the sides, meaning pone ‘put’ (pay into the pot); omne, ‘all’ (you won it all); ‘medium’ (half, take half the pot); and ‘nihil’, zero, nothing (you lose).”

As Encyclopaedia Britannica has it, teetotums – the generic term for any multi-sided spinning

tops having usually 4, 6, 8, or 12 sides marked with distinctive symbols – have been used in games of chance throughout history.

“A common gambling game with a teetotum played since medieval times is put and take, in which the various sides have symbols instructing the players to either put money in the pot or take from the pot.”

According to a post on “put & takes” and teetotums by antique gambling memorabilia collector Robert Eisenstadt – whose extensive online collection includes sevivonim – “The dreidel (a four-sided spinner with ‘put & take’like instructions on the sides) was developed in 16th century Germany.”

Bar Lev agrees, “The Chanukah sevivon, whose identifying characteristics are four sides, spindle and point, came to us from Germany.

On Christmas in December, German children would play with tops to win nuts.” The tradition spread to the neighboring Jewish communities.

“We find the German influence on our sevivon in the letters engraved on it. N, G, H, S were letters in German which were: N = Nichts – nothing; G = Ganz – everything; H = Halb – half; S = Stell ein – Put one in.”

According to Bar Lev, it was the Jews of Austro-Hungarian Poland who brought the sevivon game to the pre-state Land of Israel. “As part of the ‘conversion’ process, the sevivon’s acronym was Hebraicized to nun, gimel, heh, shin and received a new meaning: ness gadol hayah sham.”

It wasn’t called sevivon at that time, but a dreidel, from the Yiddish word “dreyen,” similar to German words “drehen” (“rotate” or “spin”) or perhaps “kreisel” (“gyro”).

Sevivon comes from the three-letter root

Whether made of wood, plastic, metal or even chocolate, there’s a sevivon out there for everyone.

4 DECEMBER 2019 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HAPPY CHANUKAH

word “SVV” (“to turn”) and, according to some sources, the word was invented in 1887 by fiveyear-old Itamar Ben-Avi, the first native speaker of modern Hebrew as the son of Eliezer BenYehuda, the driving spirit behind the revival of the Hebrew language.

But the first usage of the word in print was on December 24, 1897, by journalist David Isaiah Silberbusch, who took credit for inventing the word.

There were other attempts at Hebraicizing dreidel. National poet Hayim Nahman Bialik suggested “kirkar” (from the root “krkr” – “to spin”) and author Mendele Mocher Sforim offered up “hazarzar” (from the root “hzr” – “to return”), but neither caught on.

Bialik did make a long-lasting contribution to the holiday in Israel with the sweet song “Lichvod haHanukka,” whose opening lyric is, “Father gave me a sevivon / A sevivon made of cast lead / Do you know what it honors? / It honors Chanukah!”

The sevivon has become so identified with the holiday that it appears in all things Chanukahrelated, including the 1996 Israeli-American Chanukah stamp, the first stamp ever issued jointly by Israel and the United States. The design dilemma of which acronym to use – N/G/ H/S or N/G/H/P – was solved by presenting only three out of the four letters.

The sevivon continues to inspire children of all ages, with more and more upscale, eclectic and collectible versions available every year.

After all, the true origins of the spinning top game have always had less to do with Chanukah and more to do with keeping the kids happily occupied during the week-long holiday.

Why do we eat jelly donuts on Chanukah?

By Aly Miller The Nosher Jelly donuts are one of the most symbolic dishes of Chanukah, but have you ever wondered how that came to be? Of all the delicious fried foods to nosh on — fried pancakes, fried chicken, fried cheese, schnitzel – how did the jelly donut, or sufganiyah (sufganiyot is the plural), rise to popularity? The answer, like all good food questions, has everything to do with agriculture, food politics and, of course, our tastebuds.

Oily foods have been made to symbolize the miracle of Chanukah since the first celebration, but it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that jelly donuts became tied to Chanukah.

Food historian Gil Marks wrote that the first recipe for the jelly donut was found in 1485, in a cookbook printed in Nuremberg, Germany, called the Kuchenmeisterei (Mastery of the Kitchen) — one of the first to be printed on Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press. The original donut recipe didn’t have a hole, but rather was a pillowy pocket of dough, filled with jam. The recipe instructed bakers to make a jam “sandwich” with two circular pieces of dough, to be fried in

lard.

The addition of jam was revolutionary, as donuts had been usually a savory dish, filled with mushrooms, cheese or meat. Regardless of the filling, donuts were expensive treats to make, and not widely consumed.

Other fried foods, like buckwheat pancakes, fried radish cakes and fried cheese curds, were the Chanukah dishes of choice.

Then, in the 1500s, two important jelly donut events occurred: the cost of sugar went down with the proliferation of slave-produced sugar in the Caribbean, and the Kuchenmeisterei was translated into Polish.

By 1600, jelly donuts, called paczki, were beloved throughout Poland on Christmas, Chanukah and other special occasions. In Yiddish, they were called ponchiks, and fried in schmaltz, goose fat, or oil. Interestingly, unfilled donuts, in Yiddish, were simply “donats.”

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the tradition of jelly donuts traveled with Polish Jews wherever they immigrated. According to Marks: “In Israel … ponchiks soon took the name sufganiyah (sufganiyot plural), from a ‘spongy dough’ mentioned in the Talmud, sofgan and sfogga. The

word sphog, meaning ‘sponge,’ is so ancient that there is a question as to whether it was initially of Semitic or Indo-European origin.

Sufganiyot became specifically tied to Chanukah in Israel, in the 1920s, when the Israeli Labor Federation declared them the official food of Chanukah. What do jelly donuts have to do with labor, you ask? While latkes are easy to make at home, sufganiyot provided Israelis with jobs — think

Why do we eat latkes on Chanukah?

By Aly Miller The Nosher One of the best parts about Chanukah is arguably the fried food, especially the latkes! Emblematic of the olive oil that miraculously lasted eight days, latkes are a delicious way to tell the story of this eight-night holiday.

But if you think about it, potato latkes are kind of a newfangled tradition! Potatoes certainly hadn’t crossed the Atlantic when Jews first celebrated their liberation from the Syrian-Greeks, so what did they eat? And when did potato latkes rise to such popularity?

What traditions were left behind?

The late food historian and rabbi Gil Marks had the answer in a 2010 article: We’re not exactly sure what foods were traditionally

made prior to the 14th century, when two types of Chanukah foods emerged on the record, dairy foods and fried foods.

The Sephardic Jews made many variations of fried sweets for the holiday, while Ashkenazi Jews in Northern Europe made fried blintzes and donuts. Italian Jews in the 15th century made fried ricotta cheese pancakes (“cassola”) which were arguably the first “latkes.”

Fried cheese commemorated the heroine Judith, who was central to Chanukah celebrations during this time.

Latke recipes changed from region to region, depending on what resources were plentiful and accessible. In Northern and Eastern Europe, for example, schmaltz (chicken fat) or duck fat was used in place of oil. Along with cheese

latkes, buckwheat latkes were the norm. Roasted goose, a seasonally anticipated dish, was also traditional on the Ashkenazi table.

Initially regarded with suspicion and fear, ugly, knobby potatoes were soon embraced by the peasants of Europe in the late 18th century due to a series of crop failures and famine. Potatoes safeguarded them against the unpredictable rise and fall of grain prices, and kept them healthy and full. In fact, according to the Smithsonian Magazine, potatoes were so successful in Europe that “the effective result, in terms of calories, was to double Europe’s food supply.”

Thus, potatoes changed the diet of Europe, became central to Chanukah latkes, and the rest of the day-to-day menu.

of all the baking, transporting and merchandising behind every box of donuts!”

To this day, sufganiyot are hugely visible in Israel in the weeks leading up to Chanukah, and they’re stuffed not only with jelly, but with cream, halvah or chocolate ganache.

Here, Americans have embraced the Israeli tradition of eating sufganiyot during Chanukah, indulging in a variety of fried and filled confections.

APPLE CIDER SYRUP

BY SANDI TEPLITZ Try this unique topping for your potato latkes...

INGREDIENTS: 1 2/3 c. apple cider 1 c. light brown sugar 1 c. light corn syrup 4 Tbsp. salted butter 2 Tbsp. strained lemon juice 1/8 tsp. cinnamon 1/8 tsp. nutmeg 2 1/2 Honeycrisp apples, peeled, cored & sliced TECHNIQUE: In a heavy saucepan, bring all the ingredients except the apples to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes, until similar to maple syrup.

Put the latkes on a plate, add the apples to the syrup, and pour over the latkes. Serve immediately.

CLASSIC POTATO LATKES RECIPE THE NOSHER Making crispy potato latkes is a skill every Jewish cook wants to master. It’s not a great secret – it just requires a few easy steps to ensure crispy, golden latkes every time.

INGREDIENTS 5 large potatoes, peeled 1 small onion 2 eggs, lightly beaten ¼ cup bread crumbs, matzah meal or flour 1½ teaspoon coarse salt (1 teaspoon if using kosher salt) freshly ground black pepper DIRECTIONS Grate potatoes coarsely or finely, according to your preference. Finely grate the onion.

Place grated potatoes and onion in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze tightly until all of the

liquid is strained.

Place the strained potatoes and onion in a large bowl and add the eggs, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper.

Heat the 1-inch of oil in a large pan and drop 6 to 8 spoonfuls of mixture into hot oil. Using the back of a spoon, pat down each latke to flatten it. Put as many as you can in the skillet without crowding. Putting them too close together will make them soggy.

Fry 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until golden and crisp around the edges; repeat procedure until finished with all the batter.

Blot excess oil with paper towels and serve warm with desired topping.

HAPPY CHANUKAH | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | DECEMBER 2019 5

Friendship Circle celebrates Chanukah at JCC and on the road

By Beth Kushnick JCC Adult Coordinator Friendship Circle at the JCC has a couple of very exciting and fun things planned to celebrate Chanukah.

First, on Dec. 16, “Klezazz,” a klezmer band with a jazz feel, will be entertaining our group. We will have a beautiful, kosher catered Chanukah luncheon, beginning at 12 p.m. Our featured entertainment will start at 1 p.m. We hope you all join us for a wonderful time. New members are always welcome, and this is open to everyone in the community.

Secondly is something new and exciting for this year. We will take Friendship Circle on the road and head to Country Meadows in Allentown on Dec. 19 to have a Chanukah celebration with our Country Meadows friends.

All Friendship Circle members and community members are invited to join in and celebrate.

We will be meeting at Country Meadows on Thursday, Dec. 19, at 10:30 a.m., in Building 4.

Hope to see you!

We hope to see everyone at our Chanukah celebrations. Please reach out to Beth Kushnick at bkushnick@lvjcc.org with any questions.

Haim, Jack Black and more record songs for a Chanukah album

PRESLEY ANN/PATRICK MCMULLAN VIA GETTY IMAGES

The Haim sisters, from left, Alana, Danielle and Este, of the group Haim at Rodarte's fashion week show in San Marino, California, Feb. 5, 2019.

By Gabe Friedman Jewish Telegraphic Agency Adam Sandler is finally getting some competition in the Chanukah music world.

Haim, Jack Black, the Flaming Lips, Yo La Tengo and other prominent artists have recorded songs for a Chanukah album titled “Hanukkah+,” the record label Verve Forecast has announced.

Happy 2019!

Allentown & Lebanon Allentown & Wilkes-Barre

6 DECEMBER 2019 | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | HAPPY CHANUKAH

The album is out Nov. 22 and also features contributions from folk singer Loudon Wainwright III, Adam Green (of the band Moldy Peaches), Alex Frankel (of the electronic group Holy Ghost and a founder of the Jewish deli Frankel’s in Brooklyn) and more.

Rolling Stone reported that the record is a mix of covers and original songs. Haim’s

contribution is a cover of the late Leonard Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will.” Black wrote two originals, and the Flaming Lips and Wainwright also penned new songs for the album.

The project is the brainchild of Grammy-winning music supervisor Randall Poster, who was inspired by Yo La Tengo’s annual run of Chanukah concerts.

Finally, a Disney Princess who celebrates Chanukah!

By Arielle Kaplan Kveller.com About a year after Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman posited that her character in Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph,” Vanellope von Schweetz, is, in fact, a Jewish princess, we’re back with some truly stellar news: The universe is getting another Jewish Disney princess.

And this time, the princess’ Jewish identity is in the script.

Jamie-Lynn Sigler (best known for playing Meadow on “The Sopranos”) announced Sept.

17 that she’ll guest star in a Chanukah-themed episode of “Elena of Avalor” as a princess from a “Latino Jewish kingdom.”

For those unfamiliar with the animated Disney Channel series, titular character Princess Elena Castillo Flores is a 16-year-old who saves her kingdom of Avalor by defeating a dark sorceress. With the help of family and friends, Elena learns how to govern her people as she navigates adolescence.

We don’t know yet what the story line will be for Sigler’s Jewish-Latina princess, but Jewish actress is Sigler is thrilled to be portraying her.

“I am so excited to voice Disney’s first Jewish princess,” she tweeted.

As amazing as this is, “first” is slightly up for debate. Although Silverman insisted that her character was Jewish — “nobody said no,” she said — and the directors agreed with her, Princess Vanellope’s religious and/or cultural identity wasn’t something addressed in “WreckIt Ralph.” By contrast, it sounds like Sigler’s character’s identity is a key plot point in this forthcoming “Elena of Avalor” episode.

Sigler is the perfect person to voice the character of an explicitly Jewish Disney princess. The Jewish mom — who shares sons Beau, 6, and Jack, 1 with her husband, baseball player Cutter Dykstra — strongly identifies with her Jewish roots. The 38-year-old went to Hebrew school, had a bat mitzvah, and called Israel “one of the most beautiful inspiring places [she’s] ever been to” after completing a Birthright trip.

Hallmark Channel set to premiere Chanukah movies for first time Jewish News Syndicate The Hallmark Channel will premiere its first two Chanukahthemed movies in December in honor of the eight-day Jewish holiday, which this year starts on Dec. 22, the New York Post reported on Nov. 13.

“Our audience is very vocal, and they tell us when they’d like to see more of something,” said Michelle Vicary, Crown Media’s executive vice president of programming. “We’ve heard over the years that they would like to see [a Hanukkah movie] if a script came in that we liked. And that happened this year—twice.”

The first film, “Holiday Date,” airs on Dec. 14 and follows Brooke, a woman who experiences a breakup shortly before a trip to introduce her boyfriend to her family for Christmas. She instead goes home with Joel, a Jewish actor who will pose as her boyfriend. Since he has never celebrated Christmas, drama, of course, ensues.

“Unfortunately, they have not discussed if he knows all the traditions,” said Vicary. “As the family becomes more suspicious whether he knows how to celebrate, our two leads begin to fall for each other.”

The second Chanukah movie, “Double Holiday,” airs on Dec. 22. It’s about a Jewish woman named Rebecca whose Chanukah plans are disrupted when her boss asks her to team up with her rival to plan their office holiday party together.

Vicary said about the characters, “They learn that while the traditions and celebrations are different, the feelings of holiday and celebration and family and togetherness are the same.”

HAPPY CHANUKAH | HAKOL LEHIGH VALLEY | DECEMBER 2019 7

HAPPY

CHANUKAH Wishing you peace, love and joy as you celebrate the Festival of Lights.