Hmmm....missed this due to self-imposed absence.
Coupla thoughts:
• We always use olive oil to fry our latkes - mmmmnnnnn, olive oil!
mmmmnnnnn, latkes!
• The Chanukah gelt - the chocolate money - it's related to the dreidls. Because the transmitting and teaching of the religion was forbidden, secret schools were set up, disguised as gambling dens. When they were raided, the teaching materials were vanished and the spinning tops and money came out as diversions.
• I find a great irony that Chanukah has been used as a Christmas substitute by so many Jews. In some ways it's understandable, with Christmas being so pervasive, that some 'borrowing' takes place - presents, 'Chanukah' bushes instead of Christmas trees, etc. And some might say that Jews have always borrowed from the culture around us. But here come the irony: the story of Chanukah is about
not adopting the dominant culture. Chanukah is a celebration about how a minority prevailed against an overwhelming majority culture being forced upon it.
• The Maccabean uprising was not, strictly speaking, against the Syrians. The history is rather more complexc than the story - it was, in fact, a civil war because many Israelites gleefully adopted Greek culture (which was the dominant and most progressive culture of the period), adopting Greek dress and worship and philosophy and even the gymnasiums (where men competed naked, egad! Against Jewish law) and some men even went so far as to attempt to reverse their circumcisions.
So the Maccabeas were not quite so pure as they are painted - in some ways they can be seen to have sought the suppression of religious and cultural diversity and their 'enemies' were as much the apostates as the Syrians.
Which is not to say that the Syrians didn't have a hand in it, but that's not the complete story.
• I have given a talk about Chanukah to my kids' classes every year (I take in a menorah with candles, teach a song, provide doughnuts - and try to give a potted history of the thing). I try to find a modern symbolism to the story, and in recent times, what has struck me is that Chanukah can be used as a potent symbol for the right to be different
and the obligation to be tolerant of difference. That has tended to be my emphasis in talking to the classes in our primary school.
