Hanukkah Gifts – For Jews around the world, Hanukkah is marked by lighting candles on the menorah for eight nights, eating latkes, and twirling dreidels. But when the holidays roll around, many Jewish Americans will focus on a different tradition: gift giving.
Rabbi Menachem Creditor, resident scholar at UJA-Federation in New York, says, “It’s important to note that, being an American Jewish thing, this gift is part of Hanukkah.” “It’s not a Hanukkah story at all,” he said.
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In this, gift-giving on Hanukkah is no different than gift-giving on Christmas: it has little or nothing to do with the religious requirements of the holiday.
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The story of Hanukkah – which, however, celebrates the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem around 200 BC, and the miraculous burning of some oil for eight nights – is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but is instead found in the first and second book of Maccabees. This makes Hanukkah less religiously significant than other holidays such as Passover, Yom Kippur, and Rosh Hashanah. Those holidays require at least one day of rest, similar to the weekly Sabbath. For Hanukkah, however, such relaxation is unnecessary.
Historically, Jews around the world have not paid much attention to the Festival of Lights. Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, a Prussian-American rabbi of the Reform Jewish community, said in 1884 that “traditional candles are very common in Jewish homes,” according to Dianne Ashton.
According to Creditor, Hanukkah is by far one of the two most popular holidays for Jewish Americans, and it’s perhaps not surprising that this sharp surge in popularity took place shortly after gift-giving hit the scene as a result of self-help. The Christmas experience. In the late 1800s, Creditor explains that gift giving became “a way to market Christmas, and Christmas became a national holiday.”
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Thus, in the early 20th century, American Jews were accustomed to receiving Christmas presents in abundance. Parents didn’t want their kids to feel left out because their peers were getting gifts every December. Evidence of this shift can be seen in American Yiddish-language newspapers from the 1920s, Creditor says, advertising donations in honor of Hanukkah.
These are the beginnings of what teacher and author Eliezer Segal calls “the extreme commercialization of American Hanukkah” in his book Holidays, History and Halakhah. Recent innovations like Hanukkah Harry and the Hanukkah bushes, which aim to mimic Christmas traditions like Santa Claus and Christmas trees, continue to spread the idea that Hanukkah is a copycat of Christmas.
But Creditor sees this change as something sweet. “[Parents] see [gift giving] as a way to bring joy around Hanukkah,” says Creditor. “I think it wasn’t supposed to be like Christmas, it was for Jewish kids to enjoy Hanukkah. I know it seems like a small difference, but the difference is we didn’t want to celebrate Christmas, we wanted to have fun. “
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There’s one thing about giving away on Hanukkah that favors gifts like AirPods and gift cards: gelt. The gold-wrapped chocolate coins given to children and eaten during Hanukkah began as an “act of rebellion,” according to Creditor, after the Maccabees defeated the Greeks and rebuilt the temple. While this story is also one of the more famous legends, many scholars claim that the Jewish community invented the new coinage to celebrate “the establishment of their independence,” Creditor; that activity is the one shown after the introduction of chocolate coins into the holiday tradition.
He continued: “This is broken in history, so the gelt is given to Jewish children to reduce their teachers, to give help. “It wasn’t about receiving money, it was about feeling that we should do good with the money raised,” says Creditor.
But between the origins of Hanukkah and the history of gifts in honor of him, he still finds wonder. The story of Hanukkah teaches that Jews resisted oppression, refusing to integrate. “And surprisingly, gift-giving on Hanukkah is changing the culture around us in our rituals,” says Creditor. “It’s like Hanukkah, doing someone else’s ritual, when Hanukkah wanted to re-establish ours,” he said.
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Still, there are always lessons to be learned from other faiths, and Creditor says even Christian believers aren’t happy with the over-commercialization of Christmas.
While the tradition is deeply ingrained in American culture, he urges those who celebrate to remember that the holidays are more than gifts.
“I think the winter months always remind us that the world can be dark, and Hanukkah always reminds us that darkness can be pierced,” Creditor says. “We can chase them with light.” We no longer support older versions of your browser to ensure user data remains secure. Please update to the latest version.
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This type of information sharing may be considered a “sale” of information under the California Privacy Act. Opting out of specific ads excludes you from the “sale”. Learn more in our Privacy Policy. play dreidel games; eat foods cooked in oil; and give gifts. However, many question whether the latter custom is really a Jewish tradition or whether the gift of Hanukkah was brought about by the celebration of Christmas.
Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, explains that American Jews only exchanged gifts on Purim, but in the late 19th century there was a shift from Purim to Hanukkah. Christmas itself became more popular in the late 19th century when it became a national holiday in the United States. Jewish customs have become increasingly similar to Christmas, while Christian holidays have increased.
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