Hanukkah lights

Many Americans equate the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah with Christmas, since they both take place in December and involve gift-giving.

The origins of the eight-day celebration, which begins tonight, have more in common with the Fourth of July, though.

Just like July 4th commemorates Americans' first steps toward independence, Hanukkah celebrates the time when the ancient Hebrews rebelled against the Greek occupiers of the Holy Land, who were forcing them to reject their traditions and adopt the official Greek religion.

The rebels forced the Greeks out and re-claimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The present-day Hanukkah candles are lit to commemorate the Temple's oil lamp that burned for eight days after it was re-captured.

"For me, it's the first time in history people fought for an ideal, and that ideal was religious freedom," said Faith Pearson of Kinston.

Generations of Jews have not considered Hanukkah to be a major holiday - primary celebrations are Passover, which commemorates the Jews' escape from slavery in Egypt, and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the first day of the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, respectively.

"We didn't look at Hanukkah like some place to give so many presents," said Pearson's husband Stan. "It was just an enjoyable get-together and not commercial."

Faith added: "It was not an important Jewish holiday at all."

But no child likes to feel left out, so recent generations of Jews have exchanged gifts at Hanukkah along with the traditional menorah lighting, eating of fried potato pancakes called latkes and playing dreidel, a game involving a four-sided top.

Jewish families living in majority-Christian communities such as Kinston have had to finesse their celebrations so they mesh with friends' and relatives' Christmas celebrations.

Faith Pearson said she hung stockings from the mantel, and when her children were very young, she put white powder on the living room floor in the shape of snowy footprints leading from the fireplace.

"That's because they believed in Santa Claus and I couldn't disillusion them," she said of her children. "We try to accommodate and not make them feel different from everyone else, part of the community, but we kept our own customs."

Sharon Kanter's two sons, now grown with their own families, were two of a few Jews in their elementary school classes.

To educate their classmates, Kanter brought what one friend dubbed "the traveling Hanukkah road show" to school. The kit included latkes, candles, a menorah and other holiday items.

"They were very popular," she said. "The children loved the latkes."

Kanter was raised Lutheran and began studying Judaism about two months before she met her husband Jerry. They celebrated their first Hanukkah as a married couple with a menorah made in Israel, which she still owns.

As her sons Steven and Brian grew up she learned about Hanukkah along with them and took the meaning of the holiday to heart.

"I tried to make it clear to them that Hanukkah is not a Christmas equivalent," she said of her boys. "We've tried to keep it simple and focus on the meaning of the holiday, which to us is religious freedom."

David Anderson can be reached at (252) 559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.