He accepted a Menorah in 1951 as a gift from Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion.

Rosh Hashanah and Passover are actually considerably more important to Judaism than other Jewish holidays.

Beginning on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev, Hanukkah 2022 begins at nightfall on December 18, 2022 and ends with nightfall on December 26, and will last for eight days.

While on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1993 to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, Jeff Hoffman brought a travel-sized menorah and spun a dreidel. His mini Hanukkah celebration was broadcasted via satellite to people on Earth.

His 1996 comedy album, "What the Hell Happened to Me?", featured the song after it appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1994. The song spawned a part 2 in 1999, a part 3 in 2002, and a part 4 (which includes a Drake shout-out!) in 2015 from the same artist. Any Jewish child who grew up in the 1980s or 1990s will likely credit a Rugrats Chanukah as the other incredibly influential piece of popular culture.

Hanukkah and the events that led up to it are not mentioned in the Torah since the Maccabean Revolt took place after the Torah was written, according to History.com. Rosh Hashanah and Passover, which are Jewish holidays, are usually more important.

When you consider the foods eaten during Hanukkah, most of them are fried, including latkes, sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), apple fritters, and kugel. It's not a coincidence that during Hanukkah, people fry their meals in oil as a representation of the miracle oil that lasted for eight nights without burning out.

Hanukkah, Hannuka, Chanukah, and a variety of other spelling variations have all been used to refer to this holiday. All of the spellings are correct, though Hanukkah is the most widely used. It could be spelled in a number of ways, all of which are equally correct, because there is no direct way to convert the Hebrew sounds to English.

On each night of the holiday, one additional candle (starting from the right side) is lit from the center "Shamash" candle, according to Chabad. In total, 44 candles are lit throughout Hanukkah, but most Hanukkah candle packages for your menorah will come with eight.

The celebration honors the success of a group of rebel Jewish fighters known as the Maccabees in taking back their temple from the Greek-Syrians.

The Jews barely had enough oil for one night, but the temple had to have a sacred light burning within at all times. Amazingly, the light lasted for eight days.

A candelabra with nine candles is known as a menorah. There are four on either side and a candle in the middle that will light up all the other candles. The shamash is this, and it is situated above (or strangely apart from) the other candles.

Starting around the 16th century, a spinning top with letters printed on its side was played in both Germany and England. In order to interact with the Torah, European Jews adopted the game and used Hebrew characters in place of the German and English ones. The dreidel is now used all through the holiday season.

This year, from December 2 to December 9, you can watch the lighting of the Menorah, which stands 32 feet high and weighs 4,000 pounds.

Many festival delicacies are cooked in oil to celebrate the miracle of the oil lasting eight days, especially: the beloved sufganiyot (or jelly donuts).

On this holiday, Jews have a custom of giving their kids gelt, or golden-wrapped chocolates that resemble coins, as a reward for learning the Torah. A game of dreidel is another way to win gelt.

Also, you need a cherry picker to reach the top because it is 30 feet tall!

Shredded or mashed potatoes are shallow-fried to create latkes, also known as potato pancakes. Although latkes are a traditional Hanukkah dish, there is still a lot of room for innovation. Here are some ideas for modernizing this traditional recipe.

The Hebrew letters nun, gimmel, hay, and shin on the dreidel stand in for more than just the rules of the customary top-spinning Hanukkah game. In actuality, they are employed as an abbreviation for "nes gadol hayah sham," or "a great miracle happened there," a Hebrew expression used to explain the miracle of the oil's endurance.

Giving money to one another for Hanukkah used to be traditional. But as Christmas gained popularity, an increasing number of Jews started exchanging gifts.

Jewish studies were forbidden by the Greek-Syrians, so they pretended to be playing games while studying their Torah by spinning dreidels.

Hanukkah doesn't fall on the same day each year since the Hebrew calendar is lunisolar. The celebration always begins on the 25th of Kislev, which corresponds to November or December on the Gregorian calendar, the same time as Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Samuel E. Goldfarb, whose family has substantially influenced contemporary Jewish music, wrote the most well-known Hanukkah song in the English language, "I Have a Little Dreidel." The tune for "Shalom Aleichem," a traditional Shabbat hymn, was written by his brother, Rabbi Israel Goldfarb.

According to My Jewish Learning, they were unable to observe the eight-day holiday of Sukkot during the Maccabean Revolt. As a result, the celebration was delayed until after Jerusalem was retaken and the Temple was purified. In reality, Sukkot is a very significant Jewish holiday that is marked by food, prayers, and festivities.

In the Somerville neighborhood in 2019, Bar made a second appearance. With their own versions called "8 Crazy Nights" and "Get Lit," respectively, Chicago and Austin, Texas, also joined the party. Sadly, Pop-ups have mainly been eliminated for 2020 due to the coronavirus epidemic.

Nevertheless, a lot of Jewish kids get to decorate these tiny trees because our parents feel horrible that all of our non-Jewish peers get to do so. It's a particularly North American practice, and rabbis typically forbid it.

To avoid falling on the Shabbat, Jewish festivals like Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah can only fall on specific days of the week. Hanukkah has fewer restrictions, though, and according to Chabad, it can start on any day of the week besides Tuesday. Cheshvan, the month that comes before Kislev, can have either 29 or 30 days, which explains why.

While, in the United States, it's most commonly referred to as a menorah, the traditional Hanukkah candelabra is called different things depending on where your ancestors hail from. For example, Jews of Central or Eastern European call it "Ashkenazi" and descendants of Jewish communities in the Middle East from biblical times into the modern era - "Mizrahi". and etc.