This is the version of Hanukkah that I grew up with: presents and chocolate gelt; latkes with sour cream and applesauce; a few somber, off-key songs that no one fully remembered, about Judah Maccabee. This is the version of Hanukkah I had in mind when my daughter and I walked down to our local branch of the Oakland Public Library to check out a stack of books about the holiday.
Most of the books we found presented a familiar narrative -- dreidels and menorahs, evil Romans and pious Maccabees -- but between the lines, there were some hints at a darker story, enough to send be to Wikipedia and the Books of Maccabbees of the (definitely not Jewish but very helpful) Bible Gateway website, which led me back to the library for another stack of books, this one for myself .
COMMENT
This story exemplifies a kind of search for religious identity that shows up in several other library stories I've collected [1]. This one has an especially good description of the research process of religious questioning. It's significant that the quest starts with children's books since the naive juvenile literature version of religion is the one most people know. The realization that the children's books don't tell the whole story leads to an informative though biased Internet search and onward to more in-depth and well documented research in library books.
The search sows seeds of religious doubt, but the outcome is to reaffirm Jewish identity, and surprisingly, to reaffirm the way the family is already celebrating with an emphasis on presents and chocolate gelt. The author jokes "at the end of the day, it's all about beating Santa," but for the writer it's all about forming a religious identity as an assimilated Jew celebrating "the possibility of light in dark times and importance of even the smallest miracles."
The search sows seeds of religious doubt, but the outcome is to reaffirm Jewish identity, and surprisingly, to reaffirm the way the family is already celebrating with an emphasis on presents and chocolate gelt. The author jokes "at the end of the day, it's all about beating Santa," but for the writer it's all about forming a religious identity as an assimilated Jew celebrating "the possibility of light in dark times and importance of even the smallest miracles."
[1] Transported; God is Going to Have to Forgive Me (Christian); Go and See 'Jane and Emma' This Weekend (Mormon); Transported (Jewish).
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