Hanukkah

Sharon Seigel pulled the wooden candelabrum from her canvas bag and asked if anyone in her young audience knew what it was. "A menorah!" shouted 4-year-old Dylan Hicks. "And does anyone know what we put in it?" "Candles!" Dylan shouted. Oliver Bui, meanwhile, watched from his mother's arms. The sights and sounds of Hanukkah were entirely new to the 6-month-old - and also to his mother. "I think it's great," said Kim Bui, who is not Jewish. "It's exposing kids to other cultural celebrations."

A community Hanukkah celebration is planned for 7 o'clock tonight on the front lawn of Temple Oheb Shalom, 7310 Park Heights Ave., according to Mayor Sheila Dixon's office and Comprehensive Housing Assistance Inc. The annual event will feature the lighting of a grand menorah, entertainment by comedy juggler Michael Rosman, activities for children that include arts and crafts, face painting and balloon art, traditional Hanukkah food, and local vendors selling...

Tuesday night we lit the first candle on the Hanukkah menorah, for it was the first night of this minor eight-day Jewish holiday that's become a major one over the years. There are blessings to be recited, songs to be sung, latkes to be eaten ... but just what does Hanukkah celebrate? Answer: a successful Jewish revolt against a Syrian empire ruled by the Seleucid dynasty of Greek kings some 2,200 years ago. Well, not exactly. The revolt was not so much against the Syrian emperor, Antiochus Epiphanes, as against his attempt to impose Hellenistic culture on ancient Judea.

There's no uncertainty in the Lindenbaums' living room about what holiday they are celebrating this year. The husband and wife once made merry in winter with a Christmas tree for Amanda, who was raised Catholic, and a Hanukkah menorah for Heath, who grew up Jewish. But now menorah stickers cling to the windows of their Pikesville home, which is strung indoors and out with blue and white lights in preparation for the holiday beginning tonight. Amanda and her husband decided last year to maintain a Jewish home for their two children, though they will still visit her parents for breakfast on Dec. 25. "We have a festive home, but it's not a Christmas tree home," she said.

Interfaith service to be held tonight Columbia Cooperative Ministry, an organization of 15 Christian congregations, will hold its 40th Interfaith Thanksgiving Eve Service at 7:30 tonight at The Meeting House, 5885 Robert Oliver Place, next to the Oakland Mills Village Center in Columbia. The Rev. George Scheurich, former pastor at Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Randallstown, will give the keynote address, "Being Thankful." The children's choir of the Baha'i community of Howard County will perform.

In Hanukkah Moon, a new book by Columbia writer Deborah Clayman, a child dreams of a moon "shaped like a giant dreidel that pops open showering the world with Hanukkah gifts." But the moon of the book's title is not shaped like a dreidel or anything else. It's not even visible, because it is the new moon, which is completely dark and always appears during the eight days of Hanukkah. "It's usually around the sixth night," said Clayman, a former high school teacher who writes under the name Deborah da Costa.

As Hanukkah begins at sundown tonight, a Jewish environmental coalition is using the Festival of Lights - commemorating how one day's worth of ritual lamp oil miraculously lasted for eight days - to promote energy conservation. Members of about 500 Jewish congregations and groups across the country will install compact fluorescent light bulbs in their synagogues and homes as part of a campaign to increase awareness about global warming. "The question is, how long will our oil last?" said Barbara Lerman-Golomb, executive director of the New York-based Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.

DULUTH, MINN. -- For Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish holiday celebrated this week, the black Jewish community in Duluth is having - Let me rephrase that. There isn't a black Jewish community in Duluth, except me. It used to be my daughter and me about 20 years ago. But we moved from Minnesota to Massachusetts, and now that she's grown and established in her career, she has no immediate need to move back. I did return, and here I am. Duluth aside, there actually are a lot of black Jews.

CHICAGO -- This morning, millions of Christians will attend Christmas services to celebrate the birth of Jesus. A few hours later, Jewish families will gather to recite Hebrew prayers and light a candle on the Hanukkah menorah, a celebration of another miracle. For the first time since 1959, in a coincidental convergence of calendars, the first night of the Jewish festival of lights will fall this year on Christmas Day. While the simultaneous holidays present obvious dilemmas for interfaith couples, Jewish leaders said the proximity of Christmas and Hanukkah has always posed challenges for the Jewish community in America, affecting the way the holiday is viewed and celebrated.

The frustration Jay Bernstein feels most Sundays on Shalom USA, the Jewish-affairs radio show that he broadcasts with lifelong friend Larry Cohen, is that two hours isn't enough time. That won't be a problem this week. Bernstein and Cohen will be celebrating the first day of Hanukkah today with a 12-hour show live from Tov Pizza in Pikesville. Guests scheduled to call in include Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was elected last week to lead the Likud Party; and Yisrael Lau, the former chief Ashkenazic rabbi of Israel.