Chanukah Charlie: Everything you need to know about Hanukkah

 

It became a tradition, during my nearly 30 years at The Sun Chronicle, to write a yearly column explaining the eight-day Jewish Festival of Hanukkah. I’d do it to educate people to further understanding and also laced the column with plenty of humor to keep it light.
After a two-year hiatus, the column returned this year, and was published in the Dec. 12-13 Weekend edition of The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA. I’m grateful to my editors and friends at the paper for agreeing to bring the column back.
The link to the column online appears at the end of this column. I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a HEATLHY New Year that will be a much better year than 2020.
Larry

Here’s the 2020 “Chanukah Charlie” column.

With the coronavirus pandemic upending so many traditions this year, my old friend Chanukah Charlie texted me his interest in reviving his holiday column after a two-year hiatus. He said he felt strongly that with the year we’ve all had, we could use a smidgen of humor to explain what remains a largely misunderstood holiday that inevitably gets buried under the avalanche of Christmas hype.
I agreed with him, so Charlie’s open-book quiz is returning to explain the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, which this year starts on the night of Dec. 10 and will conclude Dec. 18 after the holiday’s final night is observed the previous evening. (All Jewish holidays begin the night before.)
So, grab a little nosh (Yiddish for snack), sit back and relax with Charlie’s quiz.
1. Chanukah is celebrated because:
A. You can never have too many gift-giving holidays.
B. Bubbies (grandmothers) needed another reason to make their tasty pancakes called “latkes.”
C. A victory in 164 BCE (Before the Common Era, which is how Judaism refers to 164 BC; it’s not a slight against anyone) by rebels over a bigger army preserved Judaism from extinction.
D. Hallmark was desperate for new plot twists to its holiday movies.
Answer: C.
2. On Chanukah, we light:
A. Lawn ornaments so your house won’t be targeted as “anti-Christmas.”
B. 10-foot-tall dreidels.
C. Chanukah bushes.
D. A candelabra called a menorah.
Answer: D.
3. Judah commanded the warriors who beat the Syrian Greeks. They were called:
A. The Maccabees.
B. Judah’s Band of Brothers.
C. Defenders of the faith.
D. Rebels with a cause.
Answer: A.
4. How long did it take the Maccabees to win and re-enter the temple after it had been desecrated by the Syrian Greeks?
A. Shorter than it takes the Yankees and Red Sox to play nine innings.
B. Longer than a boring Zoom meeting.
C. 14 days.
D. Three years.
Answer: D
5. The king of the Syrian Greeks was:
A. A modest dictator who preferred to remain anonymous.
B. Zeus.
C. Antiochus IV.
D. Alexander V.
Answer: C.
6. Antiochus forbid the Jewish people from:
A. Eating kosher food.
B. Praying as they saw fit.
C. Teaching Judaism to their children.
D. Reading the Torah (the five books of Moses of the Old Testament).
E. All of the above, as their religion was outlawed.
Answer: E.
7. The miracle of Chanukah is that:
A. The Maccabees became superheroes and got a huge Marvel movie deal.
B. A one-day’s supply of oil kept the menorah lit eight days.
C. The Maccabees won big at the chariot races while celebrating their victory.
D. The temple got cleaned up quickly, and was rededicated. (Chanukah means dedication.)
Answer: B, but D was a miracle, too.
8. How do you put the candles in the menorah? (A new candle, along with the “shamus” or server candle, is added each night.)
A. Light them as fast you can.
B. It doesn’t matter; just light one more each night.
C. You put them in right to left, and light them left to right so the oldest candle is put in first, and the newest is lit first.
D. Same as A, only reversing the right and left.
Answer: C.
9. What’s a dreidel?
A. The name of one game that you can’t use Draft Kings to bet on.
B. A kitchen utensil used to bake Chanukah doughnuts.
C. A game played by kids of all ages.
D. A spinning top with Hebrew letters.
Answer: D is used to play C.
10. The dreidel game is played:
A. On tables, windowsills and floors.
B. On any solid surface in your home.
C. While waiting for the latkes to cook.
D. With your household loved ones – or with socially-distanced friends wearing masks and sitting outside all bundled up.
Answer: Bet on all of them.
11. In the game, the winner gets the pot in the middle (usually pennies,  chocolate coins called “gelt,” dried lima beans or poker chips) if the dreidel:
A. Lands on the Hebrew letter “gimel.”
B. Spins for 5 minutes straight.
C.  Winds up in the pot of chicken soup boiling on the stove.
D. Falls less than 6 feet from the other player.
Answer: A.
12. Which English spelling of the holiday is acceptable?
A. C—h—a—n—u—k—a—h.
B. H—a—n—u—k—a—h.
C. C—h—a—n—u—k—a .
D. H—a—n—u—k—k—a—h.
Answer: All of them, because the English is transliterated from the Hebrew. D is the most common spelling because it’s the Associated Press one.
BONUS 1 — True or false: Chanukah falls on the same day every year. (Friendly hint: Faithful readers of Charlie’s past columns will recognize this as a trick question.)
Answer: True. It falls on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, which will be Dec. 11 this year and just days after Thanksgiving, Nov. 29, in 2021.
BONUS 2 TO EXPLAIN BONUS 1 — Chanukah falls on a different date each year in relation to the common calendar, because the Hebrew calendar is a lunar one that loses time. To compensate, a leap year with a 13th month in the mid-winter is added to the calendar every few years. That month is called:
A. David.
B. Abraham.
C. Moses.
D. Adar II.
Answer: D.
LARRY KESSLER and Chanukah Charlie wish you a healthy holiday season and a New Year full of hope. Reach us at larrythek65@gmail.com. Larry blogs at  https://larrytheklineup.blogspot.com/
  

The link to the column on The Sun Chronicle’s website:

https://www.thesunchronicle.com/opinion/columns/larry-kessler-seasons-greetings-from-chanukah-charlie/article_f0d2ac28-52cd-5c88-bd4b-baed9cd1d0f7.html