This is the Forward’s coverage of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
Hanukkah
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News The Secret Jewish History of Kwanzaa
Fifty years ago, at the inaugural celebration of Kwanzaa, 60 black Americans gathered in a California living room to celebrate their distant African past. It was 1966. They wore dashikis and hand-woven headwear. A troupe of musicians played drums. Men and women bowed to each other and poured libations to the ancestors. Later, someone switched…
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Community How My Southern Baptist Minister Mother Explained Her First Christmas to My Orthodox Jewish Son
I am a Jew by choice, I was raised a Muslim, and my mother is an ordained Baptist minister. One might think that I would encounter religious conflict with my family on all fronts. In fact, people are often incredulous at the ease with which I can navigate through these three Abrahamic faiths. Perhaps, because…
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Food Who Makes NYC’s Best Latkes?
Ladies and gentlemen, start your graters. New York’s 8th annual Latke Festival is set for the Brooklyn Museum on Monday, December 19. It’s a throwdown by chefs at top Big Apple restaurants. Proceeds benefit the Sylvia Center, which provides culinary and health education at NYC housing centers. Related Last year’s winner, East Village Ukrainian mainstay…
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Opinion This Hanukkah Version of a Gingerbread House Annoys Me Like Nothing Else
Like almost every other Jewish Holiday, Hanukkah is a celebration of the fact that non-Jews tried to destroy Jews, but they failed. Also: Let’s eat! At its core, Hanukkah is about a fight against total Jewish assimilation into the prevailing culture of the day. So how do American Jews celebrate this festival that commemorates our…
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Culture Finally, a Judaica Exhibit That’s Actually Interesting!
Judaica, like all religious art, represents an aesthetic dilemma: Are these religious objects primarily objects of worship, or do they have an aesthetic value abstracted from any potential uses? Even if the answer is “both,” context is critical. Most Judaica exhibits that I have seen (exhibits at the Jewish Museum in Prague, or the Museo…
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The Schmooze Eagerly Awaiting Adam Sandler’s Next Version of “The Chanukah Song”
While we eagerly await the next version of Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song,” here’s a video of the previous iteration, released around this time last year. The last list of people is presented here in full: Jesus Olaf (the snowman from “Frozen”)/Josh Gad Punky Brewster/Soleil Moon Frye Scott Rudin Joseph Gordon Levitt Stan Lee Jake…
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Food Wine That Sparkles for the Festival of Lights
Jewish cuisine in America is at a high point, as chefs and culinary entrepreneurs across the country enthusiastically deconstruct, reinvent and elevate classic Jewish food. Parallel to this, we are in the midst of an Israeli wine revolution. Wineries in Israel, to global recognition, are honing their skills and harnessing the continuity of an ancient…
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Community What the Best Hanukkah Gift Taught Me About The American Left
This year’s overlap of the Jewish and Gregorian calendars has landed Hanukkah directly on top of Christmas. While also inspiring many pithy mashup titles, this has helped illustrate a truth that undercuts one of the polite fictions of Jewish life in America: that Hanukkah would look anything like how we celebrate it today if Christmas…
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