ENCINO : Lighthearted Celebration of Hanukkah

Miniature chefs performed the Hanukkah rap while 6-year-old potato latkes danced to a Calypso beat Friday, as first-graders at the Valley Beth Shalom school gave their annual musical performance honoring the Jewish festival of lights.

True, the youngsters fidgeted with their costumes, fumbled their choreography and dissolved into chaos at the end of each song. But no one seemed to mind, or even notice.

“When they are this cute,” said Kenny Ellis, the play’s director, “anything they might actually do on stage is just the gravy.”

Friday marked the sixth day of Hanukkah, an eight-day festival that by tradition celebrates the reclamation of Jerusalem by the Jews.

But the holiday also holds more modern meanings.

“We look at the light of the candle as a true miracle. That light symbolizes goodness in the midst of darkness, and the hope that as the light increases, goodness will prevail,” said Nili Ziv, director of Judaic studies at the school.

“During this holiday,” Ziv said, “we should be kindling the spark of goodness in other people.”

Actually, the 68 first-graders who took the stage Friday kindled a spark of giddiness in the parents and school officials assembled around them. The youngsters were dressed as soldiers and jugs of oil, chefs and candles, dreidels and, of course, latkes, or potato pancakes. And the chefs rapped in their number, “What would a holiday be without food?”

The show opened as all 400 children of the elementary school sang a blessing over the lighting of the sixth candle on a large menorah. The student choir then took over the program, urging the audience to stand up against the mighty and to “help us make a better world.”

The show ended with the entire cast singing, on tiptoe and at the top of their lungs, “We are the light of hope. . . . We are the light of history.”