Hanukkah

Hanukkah (IPA: /ˈhænəkə, ˈhɑːnəkə/; Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה, romanized: Ḥănukkā, lit. 'dedication', listen^ⓘ) is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE, when the Maccabees successfully recovered Jerusalem and the Second Temple.

Beginning on the 25th of Kislev on the Hebrew calendar, Hanukkah lasts for eight nights and days. Each night is marked by lighting a Hanukkah menorah, a nine-branched candelabrum containing spaces for eight ceremonial lights plus one additional candle, the shámash (שַׁמָּשׁ, 'attendant'), which is used to light the others. Aside from the shamash, one candle is lit on the first night, two on the second, and so on, until all eight are burning together on the final night. It is the only Jewish holiday that starts in one month of the Hebrew calendar (Kislev) and concludes in another (Tevet).

Common practices on Hanukkah include certain Jewish prayers; indulging in Hanukkah music; playing the game of dreidel; and consuming fried food and dairy products, such as latke and sufganiyot. Since the 1970s, the Chabad movement within Hasidic Judaism has organized community-wide lightings of public menorahs in locales around the world.

Originally instituted as a feast "like the days of the festival of Sukkot" (2 Maccabees 10:9), it does not entail the corresponding obligations and is therefore a relatively minor holiday in strictly religious terms. Nevertheless, Hanukkah has attained major cultural significance in the Western world and elsewhere, especially among secular Jews, as it often falls during the Christmas and holiday season. Among American Jews, this chronological proximity also contributed to the seasonal gift-giving practice.