By Charly SHELTON

At this festive season of the year, everyone follows their own traditions for a winter holiday. For African-Americans celebrating Kwanzaa, it is a time to light the kinara candles. For Christians celebrating Christmas, it is a time for gift giving and celebration in commemoration of Christ’s birth. For pagans following Anglo-Saxon, Germanic or Celtic systems, it is a time for dancing, feasting and the burning of a spiced log for Mōdraniht, Yule or Winter Solstice. And for Jews across the world, it is a time to celebrate Hanukkah, the festival of light.

“It is a holiday that celebrates the idea of staying true to who you are, and it’s a celebration of dedication to Judaism, and a rededication to the faith and the belief in Jewish values,” said Jason Moss, executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys.

Hanukkah commemorates a miracle that took place in the 2nd century BC in Judea. The land of Israel was under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Seleucid King of Syria. He, unlike his benevolent father, outlawed Judaism and ordered the Jews to worship Greek gods. In 168 BC, his troops entered Jerusalem, massacred its people and defiled the city’s holy Second Temple by erecting an altar to Zeus to whom he sacrificed pigs. A large-scale rebellion broke out, led by Jewish priest Mattathias and his five sons. One son, Judah “The Hammer” Maccabee, succeeded his father after his death in 166 BC and two years later the Syrians had been driven out of Jerusalem.

The Maccabees, Judah’s troops and followers, set about cleansing the Second Temple through ancient ritual purity rites. One necessity in ancient purity rites was the burning of a menorah every night, using high-quality blessed olive oil. There was only one jar, a one-day supply of oil, left untainted by the Syrians when the Jews took the temple back. The miracle of Hanukkah was that the oil lasted for eight nights, allowing time for more consecrated oil to be found.

“[That] makes oil an essential theme throughout the celebration,” Moss said. “So we light candles as part of the festival of lights, a lot of the foods that are eaten are fried in oil, things like latkes – a fried potato pancake – and jelly donuts, or sufganiyot in Hebrew.”

Families celebrate Hanukkah each year on the 25th of Kislev in the Jewish calendar, this year falling on Dec. 24. There is the traditional lighting of the menorah and the traditional foods, but other customs have evolved to become as much a part of the holiday as latke.

“The idea of gift giving has its roots in parents rewarding their children for studying and giving them a little bit of money, in Hebrew called gelt,” Moss said, “and, as the Western societies have taken hold of these December holidays and the rise of big celebrations with Christmas and the gift giving and everything else, the Jewish community has evolved in that way too, at least in America.”

There are also Hanukkah events around the area to celebrate the holiday. The Jewish Federation hosts its annual Festival of Jewish Music this Saturday at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center at 7 p.m., and will feature traditional Jewish music to give “Jewish community members a chance to celebrate their Jewishness at a time of year when they are inundated with sleigh bells and reindeer,” Moss said.

For tickets or more info, email Federation@JewishSGPV.org, or call (626) 445-0810.

Laemmle theaters will also host its annual sing-a-long showing of “Fiddler on the Roof” on Christmas Eve, which this year happens to be the first night of Hanukkah. For tickets, visit laemmle.com/theaters/6.

And in Pasadena, there is a nightly menorah lighting at Pasadena City Hall, with Chabad of Pasadena. For more information, visit chabadpasadena.com.

  Charly Shelton