Rutgers experts reflect on Jewish holiday’s cherished value of religious freedom

This article was updated December 2012

They fall at roughly the same time of year, and even share a similar sounding date: the 25th of December and the 25th of Kislev. But although Christmas and Hanukkah both shed light during the year’s gloomy days, the perception of Hanukkah as the "Jewish Christmas" is misguided, according to two Rutgers experts.

“At its core, Hanukkah is a story of finding hope when faced with impossible challenges, of acting on faith in oneself and in one’s causes, and of bringing light into the darkest of places,” says Rabbi Heath Watenmaker, the Reform outreach initiative rabbi at Rutgers Hillel.

Hanukkah comes in the Jewish month of Kislev, corresponding with late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar, explains Gary Rendsburg, Laurie Chair in Jewish history in Rutgers’ Department of Jewish Studies who is completing a six-month position as a visiting scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

That brings it into close proximity with Christmas (the two holidays do not overlap this year, as they do occasionally), leading to a widespread misperception of Hanukkah as the “Jewish Christmas.”

But the candles that burn during Hanukkah’s eight days in the candelabrum  known as a menorah or hanukkiah symbolize a deep and profound hunger for religious freedom, the Rutgers professor says – a hunger born of an ancient rebellion in a distant land but still relevant to Americans today.

“Ours is a country founded by people looking for religious freedom – they set the tone for American culture. I think Hanukkah ties in with that part of America we love and cherish,” says Rendsburg.

The religious holiday, which begins this year at sundown Saturday, December 8, recalls a revolt by a small group of Jews in 164 BCE (before the Common Era) living in Israel under the rule of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV, a successor to Alexander the Great.

Antiochus prohibited the Jews from studying their Torah, circumcising their sons, and observing the Sabbath. The temple in Jerusalem – the central address for Jewish worship – became a temple to Zeus where pigs were sacrificed on the altar.

And this, Rendsburg says, was intolerable:  the final act of contempt that spurred Judah Maccabee and his followers to take up arms and fight off the monarchy.

“The wonder is that this is the first war in the history of the world fought for religious freedom – not economics, not power, not resources, but the freedom of people to worship their God,” the professor says.

Earliest mention of the ensuing holiday that came to be known as Hanukkah – the term comes from the Hebrew word “to dedicate” – appears in Books of the First and Second Maccabees, which date from the latter part of the Second Century BCE.  It wasn’t until 400 in the Common Era that the Talmud talks about the “other” miracle, the one most people think of today when they think of the Festival of Lights.

At the drop of a dreidel, any Hebrew school second-grader can recite the story of how, when the Jewish priests set about rededicating the temple after it had been profaned, they found just one vial of consecrated olive oil, enough to burn in the temple’s menorah for one day.

Instead, the meager supply lasted for eight days – just long enough to have new oil pressed.

Despite its grand motif, Hanukkah remained a relatively minor holiday in the Jewish pantheon for thousands of years. Only in the past half century or so has it taken on a greater significance in American popular culture, Rendsburg and Watenmaker note.

“While the themes and narratives are very different, I think that in the United States there was a desire among Jews to have a holiday celebration that was as festive and family-oriented as Christmas,” Watenmaker says. “And so Hanukkah, occurring around the same time on the calendar, became that opportunity for Jews to have their own uniquely Jewish celebration.”

Of late, a younger generation of Jews has put its own stamp on the holiday, including re-interpreting the familiar words to the megahit “Dynamite,” by Taio Cruz – “I throw my hands up in the air sometimes, singing hey oh, gotta let go.” In a parody version called “Candlelight,” the a acappella group known as the Maccabeats sings, “I flip my latkes in the air sometimes, sayin' hey oh, spin the dreidel …”

And then there’s Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song.”