Eighth Night Yid Vid: What Is This Hanukkah Thing All About?
So we’ve had seven nights of Hanukkah videos. We’ve watched singing cowboys, rapping Jewesses, will.i.am impersonators, melodious philosemitism, a comic spilling the beans on George Clooney, Adam Sandler dropping names, and Lipa Schmeltzer doing his thing. But, a viewer might fairly complain, we still don’t have any better sense of what this holiday is all about than when we began. Fair enough.
Fortunately, Rabbi Laura Baum can explain what Hanukkah is all about — and in only three minutes:
The rest of her video series is pretty good, too. Rabbi Baum also examines the Hanukkah blessings, takes a deeper look at the “myth” of the miraculously long-lasting oil, makes some edible Hanukkah art, explains that “real women eat cheese, or at least they feed it to their men before they kill them,” teaches us that there are many ways of lighting Hanukkah candles, and offers a little bit of historical perspective on the Festival of Lights.
Of course, this may raise hackles from those who look to Eight Nights of Yid Vid not for educational content but rather for a little lighthearted diversion. For those who feel this way, I found this video of a woman performing a very nice dreidel dance.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
