Talk:Hanukkah

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[edit] Historical Source

The celebration of Hannukkah is cited in 1 & 2 Maccabees of the Catholic(also Christian) Bible, thus I am offended by the author's obvious bias or oblivious ignorance. He speaks of the Septuagint as if it were common everyday verbage and completely fails to even mention that the Bible of more than half the world's Christians, the Catholic(Christian) Bible's Old Testament is derived from it. Simultaneously, calling the Protestant bible the "Christian" Bible, immediatly implicating any other bible as non-Christian.

Additionally, the Catholic term used, "deuterocanon", does not equate entirely with the Septuagint. You see, books such as Maccabees 3 & 4 and others of the Septuagint are NOT part of the Catholic Old Testament deuterocanon books.

The author might want to note that the Hebrew Scripture Canon is really strictly the Rabbinic Judaism's(though most of today's Jews) canon as Ethiopian Jews still utilize the Septuagint as their version of the "Hebrew" Bible.Micael 08:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recording

Can anyone provide a voice sample ogg file on how to say Hannukah. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hsriniva (talk • contribs) 20:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC).


Or IPA for modern and classical (and yiddish? pronunciations)... I don't know how it is actually pronounced, but I know IPA! 130.91.240.127 07:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)Linguistics Undergrad

[edit] Reference to messianic Jews

Hi,

Just took off the reference to "messianic Jews." While there are truly Jews who believe in Jesus as the messiah, their beliefs are not part of "Judaism" and therefore have no place in an article about the practice of Judaism.

-Yehuda

An encyclopedia is not a work on what we personally think should or should not be considered to be "Judaism", nor is it a referendum on our opinions of whether one "religiously-incorrect" group's observance of a Jewish holiday is to our liking. These articles are about what IS, not what we personally think should be. The fact is, whether we like it or not, Chanukah is celebrated by more people than just main-stream Jews, but also by "messianic Jews" and by many evangelical Christians. That is what IS. The celebration IS celebrated by more people than the limited group you want to include. Therefore, including encyclopedic information about the Chanukah celebrations of those who celebrate Chanukah is not only appropriate; it is imperative. If you want to help write restrictive articles and explanations about Chanukah, this is not the place to do it. I will restore the reference (though you should be the one to do it).

Our world would be way better off if we could put our relgious differences aside, and live in a pularistic society. -Paul "the chosen prophet" --Chad Woodburn

Chad: I think you're short-shrifting Yehuda on this one (perhaps because he has an obviously Jewish name?), and I'd like to educate you a bit on this. This isn't a matter of "oh, I don't like them" - in that case, we'd be ripping down more than just MJ. Messianic Judaism (badly-named - all Judaism is messianic) was an offshoot of Christianity, not Judaism. Furthermore, their legitamacy is universally rejected by all Jewish organizations. It's like calling ID a form of science - there are actual definitions to what science is, and the same goes for Jewish groups. It doesn't become science by calling it science, and it doesn't become Jewish by calling it Jewish. The fact that it's "religion" and not "science" does not change this fact.

That said, I don't see any need to take down the reference, however. Messianic Judaism is a now-accepted name for that particular variant of Christianity. If people want to consider it Jewish, that's their problem, and this is, as you stated, an encyclopedia. It would be wrong to leave out mention altogether. However, I would put such things under "Christian relationships to Chanukah".

--DMZ 13:21, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Saying that their legitimacy (as Jews) is universally rejected by "all Jewish organizations" is circular reasoning; clearly, they don't reject themselves as Jews if that's what they call themselves. And it's nothing like calling ID a form of science -- ID isn't science because it doesn't make testable predictions, not merely because scientific organizations reject it. But people really are Jews or Christians or Wiccans or Flying Spaghetti Monsterists by virtue of calling themselves same -- there are no objective or NPOV criteria for whether these adjectives apply to any specific person. And it's quite notable the Yehuda himself referred to them as "Jews". Simply put, you have addressed the wrong issue (and addressed it wrongly). Yehuda referred to "an article about the practice of Judaism" but that is circular reasoning. It's an article about Hanukkah, which is described as a "Jewish Holiday", and as Yehuda says they are Jews and doesn't disagree that they celebrate the holiday, he was wholy in error in removing mention of them. -- 68.6.40.203 10:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC) USER: Chad A. Woodburn -- This article and its treatment of minority view of Hanukkah is a clear example of the fact that Wikipedia is often not a reference about what is, but about what certain people want to be. It is not only saturated with propagandistic opinion, but at times (as in this article) eliminates factual data (which helps present a more complete, objective article about that subject) in favor of the one-sided propaganda. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Christians (especially Messianic Jews) celebrate Hanukkah. And why shouldn't they? The story of it is in their traditional Scriptures. This article at one time presented that information. But what seems to me as bigotry and hostility toward politically incorrect religious views has resulted in that information being gutted from this article. I suspect that those people think that only Jews celebrate Passover, First Fruits, Trumpets, Yom Kippur, Tabernacles, and Purim. This article will never be objective and Wikipedia will not achieve its goal until the information about the Christian celebration of Hanukkah is restored to the article or allowed to be referenced elsewhere.

    • And DMZ thank you for your condescending comments. You said I was short-shrifting Yehuda on this one (perhaps because he has an obviously Jewish name?) -- are you trying to accuse me of racism or something? I would give everything I have if that could make me a Jew. You also said, I'd like to educate you a bit on this. How arrogant! And irrelevant.
      • It's a year late, but my apologies. I didn't mean to imply you were an anti-Semite or anything. In fact, we have no substantial area of disagreement - we both would like the non-Jewish observance section back, and you have apparently agreed "Messianic Jews" belong under it. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I do find it funny that you think it's "arrogant" when people try to educate you, though. 68.48.72.17 18:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Messianic (Christian) "Judaism" is just as legitimate as Reform "Judaism", Conservative "Judaism", and Zionism (i.e. not at all).

[edit] Calendar dates

[edit] Gregorian

A user posted in the article that the Gregorian dates we are listing are offset forward by one day. I assume it is because his/her calendar program lists the date of Erev Chanukah, which seems more correct to me, but uncommon among most Gregorian calendars. Assuming that calendar program is accurate, I have clarified in the article that Chanukah begins in the evening prior to those dates. If this is inaccurate, please correct. --cprompt 14:43, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Anno Domini vs. Common Era

I believe that the Anno Domini system should be stated alongside the Common Era system (a branch from the Anno Domini system) due to the fact that both must be placed in major Christian articles, such as Jesus, and that Judaism has a lot to do with Jesus and the Anno Domini system. Therefore, I vote that any text like this : "36 BCE" would be transformed to this: "36 BC/BCE" or even "36 BCE/BC", and it would be applicable for all years BC and years AD until about the year 200.

The arrangement regarding the Jesus article was reached before the current armistice on BCE/CE changes. Please do not WP:POINT. Jayjg (talk) 22:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm getting real tired of the BC<->BCE changes. As of the end of 2003, Hanukkah used BCE; since standard Wikipedia policy is stay with the original usage, I will assist in reverting any changes away from that back to that.--Prosfilaes 04:02, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 6:00 pm

I'd like to drop the "(or 6:00 pm for legal purposes in Israel)" interjection in the section on when Hanukkah begins. For religious purposes the day begins at sundown and unless we want to go into what Jews in Antarctica do, 6:00 pm seems irrelevant to Hanukkah. --agr 18:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BCE Years vs. Seleucid Years

According to 1 and 2 Maccabees (the ones included in the Missalette's Weekday Year I), the events of Maccabees are marked only by Seleucid years (e.g., Antiochus IV Epiphanes became king "in the year 137", which is 175 BCE, and Judas Maccabeus' army reconsecrated the Temple "in the year 148", which is 165 BCE). Therefore, since the chronology chart of BCE years dates back from 198 to 63 BCE, said chart should be dated by Seleucid years from around 114 to 249 or 250 SE. Will you add the Seleucid Era years, please? --Angeldeb82 01:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hanukkah vs. Chanukah vs. Khannukkah

I think we should move this article to Khannukkah1028 02:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I do not. This matter was already discussed, please see the section above entitle 'Transliteration'. Jon513 12:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Please read very slowly and carefully:

I don't know if anyone has ever thought about it, but this is something I find very natural to think:

I suggest we always use the "Hanukkah" spelling. Technically, the 2 spellings exist because the word is Hebrew and Hebrew words have various spellings using the Latin alphabet. However, when I first saw this spelling of the word, which I believe was in 1991, I thought that it was attempted to put a bit of Christmas into it. Any comments about this?? 66.245.3.91 02:27, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hello 66.245.3.91 (it would be nice if you signed in, BTW; your IP address is a bit hard to pronounce... ;-) ), I am not particularly fond of the Chanukah spelling either — I just went through the article and made the spelling consistent and wished for a different spelling to be chosen. I agree wholeheartedly that Hanukkah is a much better alternative — not so much for associations with Christian holidays as for the reason that h- is less likely to be seriously messed-up in pronunciation by those who don't already know the word ("Tsha-nuke-ah" doesn't quite do it for me...) — and also because the double -kk- is closer to the Hebrew spelling. Let's wait a bit and see what other people think — and hope they agree with us... :) -- Olve 02:46, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree. Chanukah is unfamiliar to many. The New Oxford Dictionary gives "Hanukkah" and lists "Chanukkah" [sic] as an alternate spelling. All three of the external links to this article give "Hanukkah" including the Jewish encyclopaedia. In Google: Hanukkah 1,680,000; Chanukah 950,000; Hannukah 237,000; Chanuka 61,100; Chanukkah 53,500; Hanuka 44,300; Hanukka 20,700. This change should be made. I'm going to be bold and do it. Evertype 10:57, 2005 Feb 28 (UTC)
Right. That's done. It took an hour and a half to chase up all the links. If you check the What Links Here page you'll see that almost everything now links directly to Hanukkah. The ones which don't seem to be linked to the Jewish Holiday template; I've edited that too, but apparently it doesn't update those instantly. I hope everyone is OK with this change. It does look a lot better particularly given the transliteration. Note that in the list of alternative names I gave them in the Google order. Evertype 12:46, 2005 Feb 28 (UTC)
I don't know why this change was made, "Chanukah" better reflects the actual Hebrew pronunciation, which begins with a "chet", not a "hey", which is pronounced "khah-noo-KAH", with a sound similar to the German "Bach", as opposed to an English "h"...[jon] [talk] 13:43, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The change was made because there is no universal way to transcribe Hebrew into English. The Google search bore this out, and did indicate that the prevalent spelling in English is Hanukkah. This is also closest to the transcription given in the article itself (חנכה ḥănukkāh, or חנוכה ḥănūkkāh). Further, it is the preferred form in the New Oxford Dictionary (which is pretty authorititative). Stats on the 3,255,150 hits in Google: Hanukkah 52%, Chanukah 29%, Hannukah 7%, Hanukah 5%, Chanuka 2%, Chanukkah 2%, Hanuka 1%, Channukah 1%, Hanukka 1%, Hanaka 0%, Haneka 0%, Khanukkah 0%. I understand that distinguishing ḥet from he is difficult in English, which is why there are so many variants. But <ch> is ambiguous as to [x] or [tʃ], and since most English speakers don't have the phoneme [x] in any case, the spelling Hanukkah gives a more reliable approximation of the Hebrew sound. I think that this change was the right one to make. Evertype 18:17, 2005 Feb 28 (UTC)
Huh, we always spelled it "Chanukah" in my family growing up... --[jon] [talk] 18:29, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Sure, it's a popular spelling. But it's not the best, or most-attested, spelling in English. Evertype 13:46, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)
The problem is that Chanukah is pretty common spelling among English-speaking Jewish households. Hanukkah is useful just because its easier for people who haven't really learned any Hebrew. Hence the reason it has more searches come up using that word. I guess if there were a way to show that Chanukah is the "Jewish" way of spelling it, would that be enough to get the title changed back? Jklharris 03:58, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

However it is spelled consistently in the article is fine. Still, the speculation that the "ch" is some attemot to connect to "ch"ristmas is baseless. The ch, among those who have some familiarity with words in Hebrew is simly a way to signal the right pronunciation (as was said above...)

  • The Wikipedia naming convention is to use the most common name. Not the phonetically accurate, the most correct, the "recommended," etc. but the most common. As noted below, The American Heritage dictionary has "Hanukkah" (two k's, one n) as the main entry, mentions only "Hanukah" and "Chanukah" as alternatives, and does not provide enteries for them. Merriam-Webster online has "Hanukkah" and "Chanukah" as entries and lacks "Hanukah." Neither has "Hannukah," two n's, one k. Combined with the notes about on the New Oxford, that means that two American dictionaries and one English dictionary all concur in attesting to "Hanukkah" as most frequent. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


No, there is no consensus here, but please all see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew) and Romanization of Hebrew. The problem with this article's naming lies in 4 places in the name:

  • Transcription of heth (ח): either as h or ch
  • Doubling of n? This is actually incorrect, rather than a variant, and is probably due to authors' confusions over spelling
  • Doubling of k? This is a question of how one transcribes the dagesh hazak (or hazaq, chazak, etc).
  • Final ה (he) as h or as nothing. Technically, the h is not pronounced, but is still often added in many English transcriptions of English words, such as kippah, mitzvah, torah.

jnothman talk 14:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Those observations would be relevant if Wikipedia's naming convention was to "use the most authoritative and correct transliteration of the Hebrew name."
It is not.
Wikipedia's naming convention, Wikipedia:Naming conventions, elaborated at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) is:
Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
That would be "Hanukkah."
With, of course other alternatives clearly mentioned and explained within the article, and redirects provided from every reasonable spelling.
"Hanukkah" is not a technical term or one used only by scholars, or by Jews. It is an ordinary English word in ordinary English dictionaries, and one which is widely known to the general public. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
The "ch" is actually more correct, because it more accurately represents the throaty noise you want to make when saying the word. --kralahome 06:33, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Considering that 1) the current spelling is justified by translit. conventions and spelling frequency, 2) some people would read "Ch" as in "chair" and 3) most English-speakers won't be able to reproduce the throaty sound anyway, I agree with those who prefer simple "H". ←Humus sapiens←ну? 07:07, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Well the repetition of n is both not the most common, but is a common mistake: common mistakes are often made as redirects in Wikipedia, but not article titles. I acutally don't know what is most used in the general public: in the Ashkenazi Jewish public it is probably "Chanukkah" or "Chanukah" and sometimes "Hanukkah" etc. "Ch" is not necessarily more correct, but again see the pages I linked above. jnothman talk 11:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

English language lexicography prefers 'Hanukkah, and all the links point the the same spelling, so let's leave this one alone, shall we? Evertype 10:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


I think it should be written with a "CH" because the word chanukah is not pronounced with an H sound in front. its the rough cha sound most non-hebrew speakers have trouble pronouncing. if you dont put in a CH, then when writting, the H in Hanukkah should have a dot underneath it indicating the cha sound. but its true there is not english spelling of the word because it doesnt translate from Hebrew.

Being that the name Chanukkah/Hanukkah is a hebrew one, it would be best to stick to proper pronounciatIon and spelling, as it is in the original hebrew, "CHANUKKAH" (was just wondering if all of those saying that it should be spelled Hanukkah, can speak and read hebrew, "proper hebrew") (Josh)

[edit] Official source (ala Academia L'lashon ha-Ivrit)?

Is there an official source for the correct spelling? "Chanukah" is the spelling used by Wikipedia, the U.S. Postal Service (for the 1996 Israeli version of the Chanukah stamp), so that's what I've used when I refer to the holiday, but I've heard that there are at least 16 correct spellings in English.

French has L'Académie Française, is there an Israeli equivalent?

There is (Academia L'lashon ha-Ivrit) but it only specifies official Hebrew spellings, not transliterations into other alphabets. Dreyfus 16:29, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Typo?

Surely the YIVO spelling given as Khanike is a typo for Khanuke? I don't know Yiddish, but this looks suspicious as a sound change.

David Marjanović | 00:04 CET | 2006/12/26

Nope. Not a typo. Zsero 23:35, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Menorah = Chanukah = Chanukiah

[ [User:Zsero]] recently deleted the information about the form hanukah, claiming that "a menorah is never called a 'chanukah'". I think this is an appropriate occasion for a reminder that one should always check one's facts before removing information from an article. The form חנוכה with this particular meaning is in fact traditionally used amongst North-African Sephardim and at least some Mizrachim — and it is also not uncommon amongst Western European ("Spanish and Portuguese") Sephardim either. Regarding the form chanukiah, which is currently rapidly spreading amongst both Sephardim and Ashkenazim, the claim that it is "strictly MH" is not quite correct either — the word chanukiah is in fact a fairly traditional term amongst Balkan/Ottoman Sephardim and made its way from their Judíospanyol ("Ladino") and Hebrew into modern Hebrew. For an example of actual use of the term chanukah for documentation, see http://www.midrash.org/halakha/hanukkah.html -- Olve 08:14, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Menorah vs. Chanukiah

In modern Hebrew the word Menorah ususally is not associated with the holiday Chanukah. Rather it refers to the candelabra from the temple (Beit haMikdash) which is refered to in the story of Chanukah. It differs from a Chanukiah in that it has only seven candles (one per day of the week), while the candelabra used for Chanukah has nine candles.

However Menorah is commonly used to denote the candelabra used in Chanukah. This derives most usually from Yiddish and is commonly used outside of Israel.

  • Hi whoever you are, why didn't you sign your name with the four ~~~~ ? Anonymous comments don't add up to too much on Wikipedia. Thanks. IZAK 14:41, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Differentiating from Sukkot

"Sukkot also lasts for eight days, and was a holiday in which the lighting of lamps played a prominent part during the Second Temple period (Suk.v. 2-4). Lights were also kindled in the household, and the popular name of the festival was, therefore, according to Josephus ([1] (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=J.+AJ+12.287) Jewish Antiquities xii. 7, § 7, #323) the "Festival of Lights" ("And from that time to this we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights")."

  • Is the intention here to say that lights were kindled in the household as part of Sukkot or Hanukkah? In either case it should be edited for clarity, but especially if the intent is Hanukkah.

--WikiGnome 21:53, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other holidays celebrated with lights

I edited out the sentences about three major religions having holidays celebrated with lights. This statement seemed to be backing up the claim that "the roots of Hanukkah are probably more basic" (?) because three religions have celebrations after the winter solstice. However, this is factually incorrect; Diwali is in October or November--not in the winter--and Hanukkah is not always after the solstice. Without the rhetoric about solstices, the statement about three major religions having holidays of light was irrelevent and out of place. --WikiGnome 22:15, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Christmas-linked holiday

I didn't put in the category, but it is valid and it should remain.

Both the words "Christmas" and "Hanukkah" invoke complex mixtures of religious celebrations, cultural custom, and national tradition. For example, eating latkes is a tradition with no religious significance that is nevertheless closely linked with Hanukkah.

Naturally, there are both Christians and Jews who would like to limit Christmas and Hanukkah to include only the pure, strictly religious portions of the phenomenon. That is their prerogative and that is one point of view. Unlike Easter and Passover, there are no links between the religious aspects of Hanukkah and Christmas. There are, however, links between the nonreligious customs surrounding the two holidays.

Edward Cohen, in a reminiscence of life as a Jew in 1950s Mississippi, writes:

We had Hanukkah, a minor military holiday transformed by the combined pressure of thousands of Jewish children over the years into a substitute for Christmas

Hanukkah as a "substitute for Christmas" is a real aspect of the holiday as celebrated in the U. S., whether or not there are some who wish it were not. Hanukkah-as-a-substitute-for-Christmas can symbolize inclusion and mutual tolerance, as when a workplace or public area includes a menorah alongside Christmas-theme decorations.

Categories are there to help users find information, not to make final judgements on disputed issues, and including it in the category of Christmas-linked holidays is sensible because many people do regard it in this way. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Latkes and donuts are eaten because they are foods cooked in oil, and oil is inextricably linked to the religious perspective on chanuka. jnothman talk 23:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 'Influence on Christianity' - contrasting Judaism and Christianity

I've been bold, and edited a couple of sentences in the section Influence on Christianity. Prior to my edit, they read:

In this way a family can celebrate the external forms of these two disparate holidays simultaneously, although the theological message of the two holidays are completely at odds. (Chanukah is a holiday that presents a message of religious Jews fighting against non-Jewish religious assimilation; Christmas is a holiday that presents a message of superseding Judaism with a new religion, Christianity.)

I tried to make things a bit more NPOV - particularly, the word "superseding" bothered me, as that sounds more "competitive" than I think Christian theology intends to be. Hopefully, "perceived fulfillment" will be taken as an improvement. Comments are welcome. Cheers. --PeruvianLlama(spit) 08:09, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's Missing

[edit] When & how to celebrate

What seems to be missing from this article is a description of precisely when Hanukkah is celebrated, and how it is celebrated. CrashTestDummy 14:09, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I've merged in the separate article "Hanukkah rituals" to address the later problem.I'm not sure what more we can do about the "when" question. --agr 05:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Miracle of the oil

Also shouldn't their be something about the oil lasting a long time (I'm not up on this but I think it's part of their tradition). Thawa

  • Thawa: Please sign your name which will be done for you automatically when you type in the four tildes ~~~~ Thanks. IZAK 06:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I think he has a point tho. According to TB Shabbat 21b, it's the miracle of the oil that is the central reason for the holiday, not the military victory or triumph of Judaism's spiritual values, so the oil story should have mention in the intro. Also I'm not completely comfortable with "..Hanukkah gained unusual importance with many assimilated secular Jewish families in twentieth century America, who did not consider themselves religious, yet wanted an alternative to Christmas celebrations that often coincide with Hanukkah." The recent amplification of Hanukkah is not limited to assimilated secular Jewish families. Christmas in America (and I suspect elsewhere in the West) has become an overpowering commercialized cultural steam roller that is alarming even to many Christians and I think quite a few observant Jewish households use their Hanukkah celebration to re-channel all that cultural pressure and are very grateful for its existence. --agr 14:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The /* Story */ section must include the miracle of the eight day oil; why was this missing? I fixed it, while preserving and better integrating all previous material.

HAPPY HANNUKAH!!!!  :)

Nick 03:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Transliteration

Perhaps this is a discussion that should be had over the entire spectrum of Jewish articles, but I've made some changes to the transliteration system used on this page. As someone who has for most of his life relied on transliteration (becuase my hebrew-reading ability is not fast enough), I find the system I have employed (on the three brachot, al hanissim, and ma-oz tzur) to be the easiest to read. A few differences with the system previously employed on the site: kafs and kufs are transliterated as "k", never "q"; chets and chafs are always "ch", not "kh"; hyphens denote when two adjactent vowels should be separated; apostrophes are used for the "uh" sound in words like v'higiyanu; there is no use of double consonants (kk, nn, ll etc.). If you want to discuss what system is the best, then go through wikipedia ensuring consistency, i'm up for it.... Nudave04 04:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There is an extensive discussion on Hebrew transliteration going on at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew). I think your comments would be very helpful there. --agr 11:37, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I have inserted a section on transliteration of Hanukah MPS 23:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
The American Heritage dictionary has "Hanukkah" (two k's, one n) as the main entry, mentions only "Hanukah" and "Chanukah" as alternatives, and does not provide enteries for them. Merriam-Webster online has "Hanukkah" and "Chanukah" as entries and lacks "Hanukah." Neither has "Hannukah," two n's, one k. Based on this, I'm saying:
Hanukkah (most common in the United States)
Chanukah (common alternative in the United States)
Hanukah (common alternative in the United States)
and AFAIK "Hannukah" (two n's, one k) should not be in the list at all. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Why don't we list them as common misspellings, then. American heritage doesn't necessarily represent other English speaking countries. Later, if some australian (notional example only) thinks one of the "misspellings" is they way that country does it, then we have discovered something. I think the Google test can tell us if something is a common misspelling so it wouldn't be like we just list 500 ways to misspell a word. Chuuunnukahhh for example is not a common misspelling. Comments? MPS 17:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I think there's a case to be made for indicating the "standard dictionary spellings" for American English dictionaries, and for other major varieties of English. I'm not at all sure about whether "common misspellings" should be mentioned at all. "Ghandi" gets two million hits, compared to twelve million for "Gandhi," and Ghandi redirects to Mahatma Gandhi, but the article on Mahatma Gandhi does not mention "Ghandi" as a misspelling.
(By the way: this is really very scary... the number of Google hits on "Ghandi" relative to "Gandhi" keeps climbing. A few years ago it was about 1/10 now it is 1/6... I fear that "Ghandi" may become an accepted spelling within my lifetime!) Dpbsmith (talk) 18:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is Vav used in the center when spelling Hannukah?--75.80.66.159 18:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Info box

Text: rebellion against the ancient Greeks is not stylistically, nor historically correct.there would be a complex list, which recent scholars tend to defining as intra-Jewish conflict between Jewish communities with varied positions on the value and place of Hellenistic culture and the response to the process of the Hellenization in Judea.

This should probably say against Jewish and Syrian Greek Hellenizing forces

Any ideas? Ancient Greeks is incorrect.DaveHMDaveHM 22:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changing perception of Chanukah

I need to set aside some time to have a go at this article, but time isn't forthcoming for the next few weeks. It is sufficiently detailed to work towards becoming a featured article.

Hanukka has an interesting history in terms of how it has been percieved (although much of this belongs in the Maccabees article as well):

  • It probably began as a celebration of a military victory
  • The rabbinic world downplayed the military role, possibly because of the outcome of Hasmonean leadership that descended from the Maccabees; possibly because of an anti-militaristic stance, especially as the military leaders were meant to be priests, and didn't stand up to their expected levels of holiness.
  • The rabbinic POV thus focussed solely on the miracle. The overall idea of Hanukkah is that it is meant to be a very public celebration, though, with menorahs plainly visible to the public, so has been in a large way about Jewish unity and publicising G-d's miracle.
  • Zionism brought with it a renewed interest in Jewish strength, that returned the military image of the Maccabees back to the forefront of the Hanukkah story. This is the reason for sporting organisations by the name Maccabi.
  • A major concept in between the military victory and the publicity of the miracle is the idea of Judaism withstanding against Hellenism and Greek rule.
  • It is thus maybe ironic the Christmas influence on the celebration of Hanukkah in the modern world. The influence here needs to be discussed to a greater extent in the article, possibly with some documentation of its history. (It belongs more here than in Christmukkah, IMO.)
  • I would be interested to see material on the celebration of Hanukkah in Israel; what role the festival takes in comparison to others.

jnothman talk 23:49, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dreidel names

I had not been sure as to whether the Yiddish full names of the symbols on the dreidel came first or the Hebrew understanding of "a great miracle happened there". The former relates to the game, while the latter relates to the miracle of Chanukkah, but the latter is of somewhat contorted grammar that makes it appear only a mnemonic. Any comments? Sources? jnothman talk 11:11, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's a question: What is the meaning of the elaboration behind the different uses of shin and pey? it seems first that this, albeit tiny piece of the article is writtng from a non-NPOV, probably israeil, due to its use of the words here and there (perhaps a better description would be first person or voice, or something). either way, i know I sure didn't get the difference. what is Po? sham is explained in the overall explanation of the letters, but you still have ot look for it. if we're oging to include this, someone who understands it needs to re-write it. 07:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Only pure oil?

Someone deleted my edit and put that "(Only ritually purified olive oil was permissible for lighting the Menorah in the Temple.)." I argue in the name of Rabbi Garfield shlita: This is untrue. It was preferable to have purified oil, but because of the unavailability of pure oil, it was not necessary. The Maccabees just wanted to do the lighting in the best way possible. --Yodamace1 16:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

That was me. I certainly don't want to argue with a Rav, but I'm not sure how widely held that opinion is. In any case, whether pure oil was required or merely preferred is not central to the story and not a level of detail we need get into. I edited the section to stick more closely to what the Gemara says. I also moved this comment toward the end where new comments should be added. Happy Hanukkah! --agr 04:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry to nit-pick, but theologically, the oil requirement detail is CENTRAL. Many commentators have opined that it was the Macabees' very desire to beautify the mitzvah to which God responded with the miracle; that we should desire the "hanukah" to be meticulously observed; their voluntary beautification is the very message of Hannukah --Narcissus14
I checked with my teacher and he said pretty much the same thing as you two. So I was wrong. But if we are going to get into this level of detail, I think more of an explanation is required.--agr 03:59, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chasof z'roa

Please could someone add in details about the last verse of Ma'oz Tsur? It was an addendum written at a later date to the rest, and by a different author, but I can't recall the details. Also, a translation of the whole thing would be nice :-)

[edit] "Miracle" Not NPOV?

The part about the "miracle of the oil" is problematic. To say this event was a miracle, if indeed it ever occured, is highly biased. This is probably a frequent problem on other religion sections that needs to be worked on. In any case, I'm fixing it up in this article.

Err, excuse me whoever you are, the article DESCRIBES and EXPLAINS what and how Judaism teaches about these events and this festival. You cannot accuse a religion of being "POV". Your edits will be reverted Mr. Anonymous. IZAK 08:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
First, I don't know that Judaism, "teaches" the viewpoint that this event was a miracle. To make a statement like this, you need to address the POV of non-orthodox denominations, and of secular Jews as well. If, for example, the reform movement posits that the events are symbollic or metaphoric, then this should be mentioned. Second, are you denying that religions don't have POV beliefs? It would be hard to classify a group as a religion, if there were not biased points of view. I'm not saying the relvant events never happened (a different matter entirely)- I am pointing out that to call something an unambiguous "miracle," is highly POV. To call anything a miracle is to state that there is no alternate explanation beyond the devine. Doing so, is baised to the POV of religion.


The statements are not predicated as teachings of Judaism -- the article states as a fact that the oil miraculously lasted eight days. Thus, the reversion is POV. As for "you cannot accuse a religion of being POV" -- well, yes, of course the teachings of religions are POV, and thus should not be stated as facts in WP. To make it NPOV it obviously must say something like "according to ..., the oil miraculously lasted eight days". -- 68.6.40.203 09:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References to civil war

An edit claiming to be a revert (it wasn't, not to Zachbe anyway) in which a wholesale rewrite (with several duplicate sections) eliminated the civil war mention added by 207.200.116.74.

Admittedly an anonymous contribution isn't quite as respected as an attributed one.

And, some parts of the edit do have text from earlier versions of the article more than a dozen days old (I only looked back 2 weeks). But they'd been heavily massaged since.

Still, since Judaism's values didn't ever triumph over Hellenistic civilization as a whole, this isn't NPOV and it isn't factual. The anonymous contribution seems to be closer to fact, and clearly separated spiritual from military (arguably a good thing).

As it stands, there's an awful lot of confusion here in this text, and there's an awful lot of edits coming during the holiday. I'm trying to read each one to understand the differences.

I'll try again to split the difference. But would like some ideas for actual factual references. I seem to remember a civil war, that is, an actual event.

--William Allen Simpson 19:03, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I've finished moving things around a bit so that historical descriptions are closer together, and in easier to edit sections. And I've finished the non-controversial edits that conform to previous versions. What's left is more controversial. Hopefully, folks can add more clarity now.
--William Allen Simpson 20:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


It was me who reverted the civil war mention to the original version of the section. I thought the anon's edits were based on ridiculously unsourced POV. Check the edit-history further back and you'll find out that it was indeed a revert. Miskin 02:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it wasn't anything close to the "original" version. Indeed, none of this was in the version of a year ago. AFAIK, "revert" is a technical term of art around here, and it doesn't mean grabbing several month old text and unfairly replacing the considerable intervening effort of others. Moreover, your version is just as unsourced. Please improve the sourcing.
--15:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Still, since Judaism's values didn't ever triumph over Hellenistic civilization as a whole, this isn't NPOV and it isn't factual. The article doesn't claim that Jewish victory upon Antiochus IV overthrew the Greeks from Israel. I made some minor edits to specify that it was only Antiochus IV who had hostile intetions towards Judaism, and not Hellenistic rulers as a whole. Maybe this should become a little more specific. The civil war has nothing to do with the Maccabean revolt, I don't know where you people are getting this about Hellenized Jews. Even if there were Hellenized Jews at the time, they wouldn't be considered Jewish but Greek by their contemporaries, and the Maccabean revolt wouldn't be a "revolt" but another thing (an instigation of civil war maybe). Either way it would lose a great part of its importance. Miskin 02:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I see that you've made some improvements now, specifically in regard to Antiochus IV. Thank you.
  • I deeply resent the phrase "you people" on behalf of both myself and my Jewish relatives and friends. Please keep this civil.
  • Hellenized Jews were never considered "Greek" — just as Jews that happen to speak English as their primary language are never called "English" in the United States. The editor clearly stated "Greek-style dress, customs and manners, though simultaneously retaining a Jewish identity." That is much clearer than your version.
  • You've confirmed your POV. We need better sourcing and less POV.
--William Allen Simpson 15:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


  • I deeply resent the phrase "you people" on behalf of both myself and my Jewish relatives and friends. Please keep this civil. - By "you people" I meant "you two over there" not "you Jews".
  • just as Jews that happen to speak English as their primary language are never called "English" in the United States - Thinking anachronistically can sometimes be erroneous. Everyone would speak and write in Greek at the time, even the Roman Emperors, that didn't imply any Hellenization and no-one speaks of "Hellenized Romans". Hellenization was primarily about religion and secondarily about language. I've never read about "Hellenized Jewish" in Israel, Antiochus IV was the only Greek ruler who showed anti-semitic behaviour and tried to Hellenize the Jews, but he failed.

Miskin 18:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Anyway I think the editors who mentioned a "civil war" confused the Maccabean revolt with the Great Jewish Revolt, a completely different event of the Jewish-Roman Wars. Although there are still no references of "Hellenised Jews", the conflicts take place between the Jewish and Hellenist inhabitants of Israel. Miskin 18:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Barbourosa Festival

I made the edit labeled

  1. 19:26, 30 December 2005 130.164.68.123 (Remove reference to "Barbourosa Festival" (see Talk page for further info))

I did so because I've never heard of Hanukkah being called "Barbourosa Festival" despite having celebrated Hanukah all my life. This was confirmed by the fact that a Google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=Barbourosa+Festival) returned only this Wikipedia page. Further, I looked at the history of the user who made the edit (at 18:42 28 December 2005, from 195.198.195.50), and that was the user's first and only edit on Wikipedia.

If you can cite evidence to support this name, then please do so.

130.164.68.123 19:34, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Holidays

I have removed Category:Holidays from this article and put Category:Jewish holy days into Category:Holidays. Jon513 07:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Images

[edit] Tiffany Menorah

Why is the "Tiffany Menorah" placed in the main box as a representation of the holiday? Surely a much better picture could be used to symbolize the festival. --MosheA 01:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

what's your suggestion ? :) we can change it. there are some more photos in the article, if you want... maybe we should put a chanukiyah with candles on ? I can take such a photo maybe.. Amoruso 07:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I've uploaded an image from off flickr (with permission). I think it conveys the spirit of the holiday a bit more than the old one did. --Eliyak T·C 23:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
The new info box image is a real improvement. I used the Tiffany image to replace the Hasidim menorah, which I think some would find disrespectful rather than whimsical.--agr
that's a wonderful image, although when it's small it looks a bit too dark. When you click on it, it looks better. Amoruso 23:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Objection to the use of Hasmonean Kingdom image

I object to the use of the image containing the map of the Hasmonean Kingdom set against the background of the so-called present-day borders of Israel. The image is also being used in the articles on Jewish history, on Maccabees, on Judas Maccabeus, on Hasmonean and on the Golan Heights. But these are not the internationally recognised borders of Israel. The image suggests that the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are integral parts of the state of Israel, whereas this is subject to international disputes. To present these borders as undisputed facts, is to lessen the quality of information provided by Wikipedia. I therefore decided to remove this image. In a (very swift) reaction by a Wikipedia administrator, he accused me of "blatant vandalism". That is absurd. I'm in the habit of using Wikipedia as a source of factual, unbiased information. Ocasionally, I make a small contribution to try to enhance the factual accuracy of an article. To enhance an article is not vandalism. It is what I thought Wikipedia was all about. There are undoubtedly many images available that could be used in these articles that depict the borders of Israel, while clearly marking the disputed Palestinian Territories and the Golan Heights as disputed entities. Why would an unbiased encyclopedia, out of of all the available options, choose an image that is provided by the Israeli Foreign Ministry? If it is Wikipedia's standard policy to discourage user participation in this agressive way, then in my view, it fails in its stated purpose. --82.215.24.131 13:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The red border is only there so a person familier with Israeli geography can understand where the Hasmonean Kingdom was. It is not meant the have great polical meaning. The Israel-Jordan border in the Jordan valley is a MUCH better reference point than the green line, simply because more people know where the jordan valley is than where the green line is. Changing the map to have the red line snake around the green line would be much harder to understand. I would not object to having the green line in addition to the israel-jordan border line also, but I think it would be a bit silly. If you really think that people will get so confused by the red line you can change the caption to say explictly that the red line indicates the area of the modern state of Israel including the Golan Heights, the west bank and gaza. Removing the image just because you dissagree is not productive in any way and that is why your actions were labeled as vandalism. Jon513 14:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
In response to Jon513, I believe you underestimate the Wikipedia user. Depictions of the actual green-line Israeli borders with an indication of the disputed status of the Palestinian Territories and the Golan Heights are everywhere. They are in books, on the internet, on television. I never get confused, and I don't believe many people do. My objection is meant to enhance the factual accuracy of the articles involved. Why would Wikipedia, that strives to provide complete information, accept pieces of information that it knows to be incomplete, and therefore flawed? In addition, I would like to point out the interest that the Israeli government (being the source of this image) may have in presenting the borders in this way. Now, I realize that this difference of opinion arises out of a relatively unimportant and unharmful issue ("Where was the Hasmonean Kingdom?"). But it is precisely through relatively unharmful side-issues that a certain party in the long run can effectively influence peoples views of reality and their political opinions. I wouldn't recommend any other government or political/military group as your independent source of information either. Why not keep it as neutral as possible? Isn't that what encyclopedias are for? --82.215.24.131 17:53, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of links

The following edit by Pascal.Tesson [1] removed links to 4 sites, jewfaq, aish, chabad, and a dreidel site with the edit summary of "del some of the most obvious linkspam". To me they look like quality sites about Hannukah which we should be linking to and definitely not linkspam. And I would like to get the opinion of some of the other editors here regarding this deletion. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 17:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

These sites don't look like spam, but are rather relevant links. Why would you think that they are? TewfikTalk 17:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Chabad, aish, jewfaq are major internet resources for Jewish topics like Chanukah and there's no reason to remove them. The only one that might be borderline is the geocities site, since it is a personal website not the website of a Jewish organization that would be considered a reliable source. However, even the geocities site seems to have valuable and informative content appropriate for the External Links section, and there's no real compelling reason to delete it. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 17:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Very strange. The sites are all popular Jewish sites for exactly this kind of thing. As MPerel says, only the geocities one might be questionable, but there doesn't seem to be a need to delete that either. Jayjg (talk) 18:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I also don't see how the major ones count as linkspam. The personal website should perhaps be removed. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Unclear which criteria Pascal employed to seperate chaff from corn. I have much more problems with a recipe wiki than links to highly authoritative outlets of information on Judaism. JFW | T@lk 19:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Significant

The significance of the holiday goes far beyond what the blurb says: "The Temple in Jerusalem was purified, and the wicks of the Menorah miraculously burned for eight days with only enough oil for one day."

Instead, the holiday brings a sense of national re-assertion, being almost the second-temple era equivalent of Independence Day. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cdamama (talk • contribs) 00:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] maimonides halachot

Please add this perfect halachot of the maimonides: http://mishnetorah.com/pdf/hanukaMT.pdf

Its really valuable! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 148.177.129.212 (talk) 11:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Background Checks

If only I would have done a [url=http://ibscore.dbs.umt.edu/test/tiediscussion/000046cf.htm]free background checks[/url] on Bill first :) Would have come in handy! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.60.39.216 (talk) 19:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Numerological speculation

Part of the article speculates about the mystical significance of the number eight. Eight, being one step beyond seven, represents the Infinite (as an eight turned on its side). What place does this numerological speculation have in an encyclopedia? What sources can be cited to back it up? Did the ancient Jews use a modern arabic numeral 8 turned on its side to represent infinity? Did the similarity of the numeral 8 with an infinity symbol inspire them in their understanding of Hanukkah? That section needs to be cleaned up. — 38.115.151.134 17:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

While I don't have any source offhand, there are authentic Jewish sources that mentions the idea that 7 represents nature (7 days of creation) and 8 is supernatural. It has nothing to do with the shape of the number. Jon513 19:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Usual amateurish pronunciation information

As is all too common in Wikipedia, this article contains vague, amateurish, confusing and contradictory scraps of information about pronunciation. I'm unable to edit the article to mitigate this due to the protection, but I hope someone with the requisite permissions will have a go themselves. Firstly, in the introduction, the reader is informed that the sound at the beginning of the word is not present in English, but the perfectly legitimate English word "loch" is used to illustrate what this sound is! Now I accept that many English speakers use /k/ for "loch", but plenty retain /x/ in their phonemic inventory. Furthermore, some varieties of English make extensive use of the [x] sound, with Scouse very commonly realising what for most of us is phonemic /k/ as [x] or [kx]. So, if we are talking about "ch" as in "loch" here, we should not be so crass as to suggest that the sound "does not exist in the English language", as the article currently does. Are we talking about [x] though, or something else? The section about transliteration says it's a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, which is not the same thing! The article on heth talks about pharyngeal and velar fricatives, leaving me wondering if [ħ] and [x] are allophones in Hebrew or not. Someone needs to sort this out, preferably using some IPA at relevant points in the article. Wikipedia has some good articles on linguistics and phonetics topics, but the rest of the encyclopaedia is a rogues' gallery of pronunciation howlers. I hope someone who knows all about the pronunciation of this word can imbue its article with an ounce of professionalism. 86.136.92.195 03:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Het and chaf don't really sound alike, but the vast majority of Hebrew speakers today find the het too hard, and pronounce it like a chaf instead. Chaf is, more or less, the "ch" in "loch", but het is sounded much further back down the throat, and doesn't sound like anything in English. Zsero 14:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suppression of Hanukkah

When the Nazis seized power in 1933, they suppressed Hanukkah by burning menorahs and candles, and abolishing the game of Dreidel. They even destroyed and vandalized synagogues that provided Hanukkah services. Wasn't that terrible. - Vahe Demrijian. 12:01. 19 February 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.194.116.63 (talk) 20:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

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