MENNORAHS COME IN
ALL SIZES 8j SHAPES
Mom with a Mission
Tips for presenting Chanukah at school
BY NANCY MADES
TRADITION ! TRADITION!
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# 4
111 y son is one of only two
Jewish children in his
first-grade class at our
neighborhood school, a
place where most of the children and
even some of the parents still define
Chanukah as "Jewish Christmas." To
help the other children understand our
holiday, and to help my son feel proud
of it, I decided to make a class presen-
tation about Chanukah.
Along the way, I learned some
pointers that may help you if you
decide to introduce Chanukah to
your child's class. These ideas would
be appropriate for children in
preschool through first grade.
1. Contact the teacher with your
offer well in advance so that the two of
you can pick a date that won't interfere
with any other special events at school.
2. Provide the teacher with an
agenda of what you're going to be
doing, for how long, and whether
you'll need any special equipment or
supplies from the school.
3. Keep the presentation simple. I
tell the story of the Maccabees and
the miracle of the oil, serve some
potato latkes, and make a craft.
Children love the story of
Chanukah because it combines
action-figure type heroes with a magi-
cal ending. Chanukah is the story of
how a tiny band of Jewish farmers
were able to defeat the entire Syrian
army. The story of Chanukah takes
place in Israel about 2,400 years ago
when the Syrian king Antiochus took
over the country and declared that
the Jews would no longer be allowed
to practice Judaism. He banned their
holy books, dismantled their beautiful
temple and made worshipping his
Greek religion the law.
Many of the Jews went along with
Antiochus' orders, but one group, led
by an elder Jewish leader named
Mattathias, refused. He and his sons
fled up into the mountains and fash-
ioned themselves into a tiny army
called the Maccabees, a word that
means hammers. Even though the
Syrian army had swords, javelins and
elephants to fight with, while the
Maccabees had only sticks, stones and
farm tools, the small band was able to
defeat the enormous Syrian army.
When the Maccabees returned to
their holy temple after the war, they
discovered all of the damage that
Antiochus had done. The temple was
in ruins, with dirt and blood every-
where, and the Syrians had thrown
out or destroyed all of the Jewish
books and candlesticks. The temple's
menorah, a lamp with seven branches
— one for every day of the week, lay
on the floor. It was supposed to be
kept burning all the time, but when
the Maccabees searched the temple,
all they could find was a tiny bottle of
oil that could only last for one day. It
would take at least a week for them to
make more new oil.
The Maccabees poured the little
bottle of oil in the menorah and lit it.
A miracle happened, and those little
drops of oil somehow kept the meno-
rah burning for eight days. So, every
year, Jews all around the world
remember the Maccabees' victory and
the miracle of the oil by lighting their
special Chanukah menorahs. These
menorahs have nine branches — with
one branch allotted to a special candle
that is used to light the others — and
are lit at home for eight nights.
Special foods like potato latkes or
pancakes and jelly doughnuts are also
eaten because they are cooked in oil.
If you don't know the story of
Chanukah by heart, or if storytelling
isn't your strong point, children's
books such as Beni's First Chanukah
by Jane Breskin Zalben (Henry Holt,
1988), Chanukah Lights, Chanukah
Nights by Leslie Kimmelman
(HarperCollins 1995), and The Eight
Nights of Chanukah by Judy Nayer
(Troll Associates, 1998) are helpful.
Nancy Mades is a freelance writer in
Boston. She wrote this article for Jewish
Family Lifi at www.jewishfamily.com