JKids - Jewish Knowledge Online

Why do we celebrate this day?

Many kids concider this holiday one of the best holidays of the year,mostly for the gifts, but for the colorful history it tells us.

This holiday is the celebration of our freedom to celebrate our religion.The story started over a 2,000 years ago in the land of Israel and we were not happy at the time because Alexander was trying to take Israel over! We also had some laws that we did not like. We could not read the torah and lots of other things. So we decided to have a war! Of course we won but there was something wrong, they took all of our oil so we couldn't light the menorah. But someone found a leiter of oil, which cannot light the menorah for vey long. But a miracle happened, the oil burnt for eight days and that is why Hanukah is eight days long. On Chanukah, we eat a lot of diffrent food and it is all great. We also play a game called Dreidel and of course you use a dreidel. It is a very fun game! On Hanukah one of the common things to eat is called a potato latke. On Hanukah you light a menorah and you keep adding and lighting one more candle over eight days. You also get presents on each of the eight nights.

Presents are a relatively new addition to this fun-filled holiday. They were added in the U.S. because the Jewish people didn't have a holiday like Christmas to celebrate. Since Chanukah is the closest date to Christmas, presents were added to the holiday.