A Festival Sheds Light on Tradition : Hanukkah: For former Soviet Jews now living in O.C., it was a chance to openly celebrate the historic holidays.

Victor Voronel was born a Jew 33 years ago, but he had never lit a menorah nor heard of Hanukkah until two years ago.

Voronel grew up in a small southern Ukraine town where the only synagogue had been closed under Soviet rule and converted to a treatment center for alcoholics.

“Nobody could pray to God there,” said Voronel of Tustin. “The closest synagogue was 80 miles away.”

On Sunday, Voronel and his family celebrated Hanukkah openly for the first time, free from persecution. The Voronels and eight other Jewish families who recently emigrated from Belarus, Tajikistan and other former Soviet republics gathered at a Hanukkah party hosted by the Jewish Family Service in Orange.

Children screamed and laughed, playing with the usual trappings of the holiday for tots: blue and white tinsel, gold-wrapped chocolate coins and presents. But there also were lessons for adults, many of whom were hearing for the first time about customs other Jews have practiced for years and years.

“Several years ago, people couldn’t wear Jewish dress or learn about the traditions,” said Valeria Babayeva, 55, who moved to Mission Viejo from Moscow three weeks ago. “I had friends who were arrested for studying Hebrew. I’m very happy to be here now.”

Babayeva and her fellow refugees traded stories from their homelands and ate Jewish culinary treats, including latkes , or potato pancakes, and golf ball-sized sufganiyot , or jelly-filled doughnut holes.

Charlene Edwards, director of social services at the Jewish Family Service, said some Jews only knew about their faith because they remember hearing their grandparents talk about customs they had practiced before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

“They hear stories about their identity long ago,” Edwards said.

After the feast, established Jews from Orange County gave the newcomers a refresher course on the reason they were celebrating, the religious and historical significance of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. The holiday symbolizes Jews’ freedom to worship.

Staff members from the Jewish Family Service recruited a dozen of the newcomers’ children to participate in a play that related the story of the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem in 165 B.C. More than 2,000 years ago, Syrians took over the temple and commanded Jews to worship Greek idols instead of their own God, Edwards told the audience. But a leader, Judas Maccabaeus, formed an army, defeated the Syrians and smashed the idols.

To illustrate, about a dozen children who played Jewish soldiers wearing blue yarmulkes waved neon pink plastic swords at three other children who played Syrians. “Yeaaaa!” yelled the victors when their foes fell to the ground.

The Jews needed to cleanse the temple, but only had enough oil to keep lights burning for one day, Edwards explained. According to legend, a miracle occurred: The flame burned for not one day, but eight. So Jews celebrate the victory, and the religious freedom it represents, by lighting candles on a menorah for eight consecutive days.

Mel Roth, executive director of the Jewish Family Service, showed the Jewish families how to light the menorah, and led the group in a chant as he topped each candle on a brass candelabra with a flickering flame.

“For some of these people, they grow up knowing they’re Jewish because of prejudice against them,” Roth said. “It’s written on their passports and documents.”

But after perestroika and glasnost , some people in the former Soviet republics started to gather to rediscover their Jewish faith. Young Jews visited other nations to learn Jewish traditions; others listened to rabbis who traveled through Eastern Europe.

“I discovered Judaism,” said Irina Shulkin, 31. “If you learn your roots, you start to love who you are.

“Behind you is a whole history, with a lot of heroes, and it makes me proud,” said Shulkin, who emigrated from Lvov, Ukraine, three years ago and is now learning Hebrew. “For the people who grew up speaking it, it’s their native language and nothing special.

“But for me,” Shulkin said, “it’s definitely a big deal.”