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A Hanukkah menorah, or hanukkiah, [a] is a nine-branched candelabrum lit during the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Eight of the nine branches hold lights (candles or oil lamps) that symbolize the eight nights of the holiday; on each night, one more light is lit than the previous night, until on the final night all eight branches are ignited.
Although it does often fall around the same time of year, Hanukkah is not just the Jewish equivalent of Christmas, even though this year, the dates do line up in rare form: Hanukkah begins ...
Today, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah lasts eight days to remember, and celebrate, the miracle of the one cruse of oil lasting eight days. One candle is lit on the first night in addition to the shammash, and a candle is added each night. Ultimately, nine candles are lit on the final night of the holiday, including the shammash.
Hanukkah starts in December this year, but ends in January. Here's what to know about the Jewish holiday including the dates, what it means and more.
In Hebrew, Hanukkah means “dedication,” and the holiday marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BC, after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying foreign forces. With the tiny supply of ritually pure oil that they found in the temple, they lit the menorah — and it stayed lit for eight days.
The Jewish people continued to celebrate the temple rededication annually, but it would take another 250 years before Hanukkah came to be known as the Festival of Lights, a term coined by the ...
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there are 24 spellings for Hanukkah, during which Jews light candles on a menorah to celebrate the miracle of a one-day oil supply lasting eight after ...
Modern Jewish families in particular adopted elements of the Christmas tradition in the Hanukkah festival. For example, Hanukkah gifts or money became common in the 19th century. [7] Many families from the assimilated German-Jewish bourgeoisie celebrated Christmas directly as a purely secular winter festival.