Chanukah 66 articles

Eileen Goltz is a freelance kosher food writer who was born and raised in the Chicago area. She graduated from Indiana University and the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris. She...

Is Hanukkah merely a holiday telling us a heroic story of battles won and political victories gained, like the American Fourth of July or the French Fourteenth of July? A political...

The gemara states that the mitzva of Chanuka lights is “a candle to each man and his house” (ner ish u’veito). No mention is made of lighting in shul. However, many...

The story of Hanukkah is typical of all our confrontations in the Galut, the Diaspora. In aristocracy, each family has a coat of arms, an emblem. What was the emblem of...

WHAT A MODEST, SPINNING TOP CAN TEACH US ABOUT MIRACLES We live in an age of miracles and wonder. Does that sound like a ridiculous statement to you – to characterize...

  Chanukah commemorates a miracle from ancient times when Jews rededicated a temple and lit candelabra with enough oil to last for one day. The oil miraculously burned for eight days,...

A few years ago I started thinking about Hanukkah in May. I was at a Greek festival, and I tasted a pastry that struck me as the perfect Hanukkah treat. At...

On motzei Shabbat during Chanuka we must make havdala to mark the departing Shabbat and also light the Chanuka lights corresponding to the coming day. Which has precedence? Shulchan Arukh (OC...

I’m bored. Maybe it’s the 40-year itch, but I’ve been making the same Hanukkah potato latkes for decades. (Not that there’s anything wrong with them. Several years ago, in reviewing my...

Moshe leapt from one roof to the next, his heart pounding wildly*. His two pursuers leapt after him, spears pointed at his back. They had been chasing him for what seemed...