Getting Into the...Chanukah Spirit.

It's hard to believe that Chanukah 5771 is almost here.  This is one of the times that I so miss being in Israel.  I want to be surrounded by my own people's holiday and culture.  Chanukah is a celebration of the restoration of religious freedom and the Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple) to the Jewish people.  America--let's face it--was founded by Christians and promotes Christian holidays, which is understandable.  I am a proud American, but also a proud Jew. Being a Jew is the core of my being, and as a Jew, I have the need to be surrounded by my own heritage, customs and laws.  I can feel this so much more in a Jewish country, where my religion is the main, official one. 

Besides, there is nothing like Israeli sufganiyot (American jelly doughnuts can't hold a candle, so to speak).

Thanks to Jacob Richman for posting all his Chanukah videos.  I don't know whether this one is on his list, however.



(By the way, no offense meant to anyone, Christian or Jewish.  Just take the video with a grain of...jelly and oil.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Great Debate: Is it Itsy Bitsy, or Inky Dinky, of Spider Fame?

Image
For the better part of a year, I've had an on-again, off-again debate with my D.H. as to the "correct" adjective in the children's finger-play nursery rhyme, "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" (now you know which one I favor). My D. H. insists that the correct descriptive is "inky dinky," whereas I demur.  I vaguely recollect from my own childhood, either hearing " itsy-bitsy spider ," or even more familiar to me, the description "eency-weency," referring to said spider's miniscule size, yet plucky persistance, and how he (she?) braved the violent rainstorm which "washed it out" after the arduous climb up the water spout, yet doggedly climbed the spout again, after the sun came out and 'dried up all the rain.' Many, if not most of our American nursery rhymes originated on the other side of the pond, in England, for obvious reasons: the American colonists were British in origin, and brought with them the culture an
Read more

The End. Is there a Beginning...?

This is my first post back on Tikkun Olam since April 23rd, 2015. It does not feel real. Why is it that we never think we will ever have a JOLT in our lives that will change the entire life course we have been traveling? We continue on, day by day, complacent, even in the face of serious illness--believing that what we are living is the only reality; that it is immutable, that it is PHYSICAL: you can touch it, feel it, and it will continue to be there for you tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... But it isn't. And it won't.  Because the unthinkable can, and does, happen, in time. To everybody. As it happened to me, almost a year ago, on August 10, 2015, when my DH - Dear Husband, of 46 years, died. I am living in an Alternate Universe. Because the universe in which I was living all my life until now, is gone. I still want to slap myself in the face and wake myself up. It's a dream. A terrible nightmare.  It's a horror movie with a frightening ending, but I will
Read more

Some Recent Israeli Accomplishments in her 67 Years: Independence Day 2015

Image
An update to Waze which might nip kidnappings in the bud, a possible cure for Alzheimer's, and water management methods California surely can use - just to mention three, on the occasion of Israel's 67th Independence Day celebrations: Lighting the (Independence Day) Torch of the Future of the World. (What a country; what a people!) Dr. Marta Weinstock-Rosin who invented the memory-improving drug Exelon speaks up about a possible future without Alzheimer's. A short excerpt about Dr. Weinstock-Rosin, below.  In many ways, Exelon, and its inventor, paved new paths in Israeli medicine, and Israeli society. Weinstock-Rosin, who is Orthodox, was born in Vienna and fled with her family to Britain in 1939, narrowly escaping from the Nazis. She came to Israel with her family in 1969, and became a professor at Hebrew University in 1981. In 1983, she became head of the Pharmacology department at the Hebrew University (now part of the Institute for Drug Research) in the Fa
Read more