urij i ILJU‘VC

The
Warmth
Of The
Holiday

How to make Chanukah a memorable
experience for your children.

ELLYCE FIELD SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

s Jews, we
light the first
candle of Chanukah on De-
cember 8, quietly celebrating
our own heritage, values and
tradition amid the hoopla and
tinsel that mark the countdown
until Christmas.
As parents, do we have
enough goodies in our spiritual
grab-bag to pull it off?

Understand
The History

"Chanukah, ' says Dr. Mark
Smiley, headmaster of Hillel
Day School in Farmington Hills,
"is an opportunity for American
Jews not to be seduced into as-
similation or into a needless
denigration of self, peoplehood
or God."
"The Hasmonean uprising
was a rejection of Hellenism.
Jewish spirituality, ethics and
laws won out over a self-hating
imitation of foreign values and
cultures," he adds.
`The message of Chanukah,"
says Dr. Smiley, "is that we can
live in a foreign culture but not
be destroyed by it. The Mac-
cabees drew the line; so can we.
We need to keep the light burn-
Ellyce Field is a West
Bloomfield writer.

ing, metaphorically and practi-
cally."
Rena Rotenberg, director of
Baltimore's Early Childhood
Education for the Council on
Jewish Education Services, be-
lieves parents need to educate
themselves about the historical
events of the holiday — the vic-
tory of the Maccabees against
Hellenization.
"It's not the Jewish Christ-
mas," she asserted. "In fact,
Chanukah's theme of religious
freedom is more related to
Thanksgiving."
Rabbi Scott Steinman, prin-
cipal of P'TACH of Baltimore,
has the same opinion.
"If I had no Jewish education
and I went to the mall at Christ-
mas time, I would feel a longing
for all of that," the rabbi said of
the seasonal glitter. "Jews who
feel either jealousy or some kind
of vacuum during the
Chanukah/Christmas season
have an obligation to read the
story of Chanukah, look for a
class in Jewish education or
study with a local rabbi."

Make Memories

Mention Chanukah to Ira
Wise, temple educator at Tem-
ple Emanu-El in Oak Park, and
instantaneously, he smells oil
burning and sees himself as a
small child working alongside

his apron-clad grandmother,
grating potatoes so fine "they
were almost like mush."
Today's parents can create
the same memories for their
children by loading them with
the sound, sight, smell and taste
of the holiday.
Mrs. Rotenberg suggested,
"Get involved in food prepara-
tion for the holiday. Bake cook-
ies; make candles; fry latkes.
And talk to your children while
you're working. Tell them
Chanukah stories. Sing
Chanukah songs."

Create The Mood

"We get into the light, the fire
of the holiday, the symbolism of
light," says Dr. Helene Cohen,
assistant principal of Hillel Day
School in Farmington Hills.
Each of her four children has
one or two Chanukiot, all dif-
ferent shapes, sizes and mate-
rials, some bought, others
created as school projects. "We
display them on our sideboard
and they stay set up all day
long."
As night falls, the family

stands in front of a window to
light the Chanukah candles.
"It's our way of sharing our
pride in Judaism with the out-
side world," Dr.Cohen says.
"And we say to our children,
`Isn't it great that we are free
and we can do this.' "
The Cohens also set aside one
Chanukiot whose candles are
not lit. "Our children under-
stand that this Chanukiot is for
others who aren't politically or
spiritually free enough to light
their own," says Dr. Cohen.

Then, while your kids play
dreidel games, hotly gambling
with raisins, peanuts or pen-
nies, offer them this historical
tidbit, courtesy of P'TACH's
Rabbi Steinman.
"Dreidels were originally
used as decoys. When the Hel-
lenists put a ban on learning
Torah, students and teachers
pretended to gamble with a
dreidel in order to continue
teaching. You suffered the
death penalty if you were
found."
WARMTH page G-37