8 days and 8 nights: The story of Hanukkah (which starts Thursday)

More than 2,000 years ago, a little jar of oil burned longer than anyone expected. Jewish people still celebrate this miracle every year during Hanukkah, which starts Thursday night.

The holiday, also known as the festival of lights, lasts for eight nights. On every night, families pray, sing and eat together. Some traditional Hanukkah foods are the latke, which is a fried potato pancake, and jelly doughnuts.

Families also exchange gifts, like gold coins called gelt (which are sometimes made of chocolate!), and play games with a dreidel, a spinning wooden top, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

And, of course, every night Jewish families light one more candle on a hanukkiah, which is commonly called a menorah.

The lighting of the menorah is the tradition most closely related to that jar of oil that exceeded expectations thousands of years ago.

Back then, a king named Antiochus ruled over Israel. He didn't like the Jews, and he ordered that they pray instead to Greek gods. Angry, he sent his soldiers to ruin the Jews' Holy Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Jewish nonprofit PJ Library, the soldiers littered trash and mud in the temple, ripped up furniture and broke jars of oil Jews had used to light the temple's menorah.

Judah Maccabee thought this was wrong, so he led a group of Jews, later called the Maccabees, to fight against Antiochus' army. When the Maccabees finally succeeded, they began cleaning up the temple.

They built a new menorah for the temple, but could not find enough oil to light it. At last, they found one little jar, enough to light it for only one night. But miraculously, the menorah kept burning and burning for eight nights.

Comments: molly.duffy@thegazette.com