Candle #6:“Gelt, Latkes, Sufganiyot, Dreidl”

  We’re accustomed to the American dreidl with the letters nun, gimmel, hei, shin, the first letters of Nes gadol haya sham, “A great miracle happened there.” But as you can imagine, since “there” was “here” for those in Israel, their dreidl letters include the letter pei for po “here” instead of the letter shin for sham “there.” Now people have different interpretations of how to play dreidl. I’m not going to go over the actions needed when your dreidl lands on this letter or that except to say that usually shin would mean shtel, the Yiddish/German word for “place,” and you’d place an M&M or something else (not in my house) in the pot. But the same can be done with pei if you’re using English. Yes, “put.” So, this otherwise controversial decision can easily be solved.

  Latkes, potato pancakes, aren’t the cultural delight for the Sephardic Jews or those from Arab lands who knew little from the potato. But absolutely EVERYONE likes a good donut (Me, Dunkin; others…Krispy Kreme). So, because they are prepared in oil the Chanukah treat in Israel is the sufganiyah, the oil-soaked donuts. Interestingly my parents told me that in Germany its equivalent was the snack food on New Year’s Eve…December 31(not Rosh Hashanah).

  Before our children were bombarded with Chanukah gifts it was the custom to give a coin. If you notice most Judaica shops (ours?) and even supermarkets that have a large Jewish clientele stock Chanukah gelt (money, coins) in either boxes or those “holy” (as in, “they’ve got holes”) bags. The gelt is chocolate and comes in various diameters supposedly to indicate value, but there is an historic reason for this custom.

   The Hasmoneans were the successors to the Maccabees; it was Israel’s first commonwealth and they minted coins as one would expect a sovereign state to do. Because of this in later years children would receive one coin for the holiday (no, not “one for each night”), a special treat indeed. It was the commercialism, maybe the materialism (remember, the rabbis complained that Hellenism would lead to that), and the competition with Christmas that changed the picture.