[Lisa Fishman]

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To add to this conversation, I wanted to let you know why Hanukkah is historically significant to Judisiam. (In a nutshell) The Jews were ruled by Syian King Antiohus. The Syrians faught the Jews. The Syrians destroyed the Jewish Temple because the Jews stood up to Antiochus and told his they would NOT worship his idols. When the Jews faught back a father and his sons banded together to be the Maccabees. The Jews won the Temple back. As the Jews and the Maccebees were looking through their precious, destroyed Temple they found some oil to light their lamps. They did not think it was enough to last them one day. It was a miracle, but the oil lasted for eight nights and days. This is why we say, Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights and why the holiday lasts eight nights. This is why we have the menorah with eight candles. Hanukkah in Hebrew acually means "Rededication" because the Jews were rededicating the new second Temple.
The significance of the dreidel is: each side of the spinning top has a Hebrew letter. The letters: gimmel (G), hey (H), nun (N) and shin (sh sound). These letters stand for the Hebrew words nes, gadol, haya, sham. This means in English, "A great miracle happened there." In Israel, they use the letters for saying " A great miracle happened HERE."