A Recipe for Remembering

Some children chopped potatoes. Others cracked eggs. And the rest of the 4-year-olds tried to contain their tears while slicing onions.

Despite the adage, there weren’t too many cooks in the kitchen at Adat Elohim Preschool on this day. Seventeen youngsters huddled around a table in their classroom to help make latkes, one of the traditional dishes of Hanukkah.

The scent of these potato pancakes quickly filled the room. And within an hour, the finished product filled the children.

“Awesome. I love them,” said Emily Crane of Oak Park, who ate two. “They’re special.”

Such sentiment applies not only to latkes’ flavor, but also to their significance. Along with the menorah and dreidel, latkes are symbolic elements of Hanukkah, which commences at sundown today and commemorates the rededication of the Jewish temple in 165 BC.

These symbols are part of the holiday’s tradition and for Jewish children they help bring understanding of a religious history that will be passed on to future generations.

“All these different symbols remind you of what occurred,” said Rabbi Richard Spiegel of Temple Etz Chaim in Thousand Oaks. “If you just talk it and don’t have any symbols that really grab you in a different way, then it won’t be something as meaningful. And you won’t want to be a part of it as much.”

In 165 BC, Jews were under Syrian Greek rule and weren’t allowed to practice their faith. A small group of Jews known as the Maccabees stood up for their beliefs and waged a war against the Syrian Greek army. The outnumbered Maccabees won the battle, but returned to a temple that had been ransacked.

In their house of worship they found only enough oil to illuminate the temple for a single day. But miraculously, the menorah continued to burn for eight days. Since that time, Jews light an additional candle each night on the menorah, a candelabrum, in remembrance of this event. Foods such as latkes, cooked in oil, symbolize the purified oil that illuminated the temple for eight days.

A dreidel is a four-sided spinning top that became popular during Hanukkah in the Middle Ages. The four Hebrew letters on the dreidel stand for “a great miracle happened there,” in reference to the menorah staying lit for more than a week, Spiegel said.

With a dreidel, players wager coins or coin-shaped chocolate in a spinning top game. Depending on how the dreidel lands, a player either loses their turn, has to contribute more coins, or can take half or all that has been wagered. The last player with coins is the winner.

Jennifer Gaines, a fifth-grader at Rose Avenue School in Oxnard, has taken to heart all the Hanukkah traditions. She plays dreidel with friends, makes latkes with her mother and lights the menorah on each Hanukkah night.

Jennifer, who also attends Congregation Am HaYam Family Talmud Torah School in Oxnard, said she gets much more out of the holiday by being an active participant.

“If you didn’t do these things and just read out of a book, you wouldn’t get to experience it or anything,” the 10-year-old said. “And without experiencing it, you wouldn’t get to feel the real meaning of Hanukkah.”

Michele Schor, a teacher at Adat Elohim Preschool, tries to impart the holiday’s meaning to her students through symbolism. In addition to preparing the potato pancakes, her students created Hanukkah cards for their parents and played dreidel with classmates.

“It’s fun for them, and they get to do a different activity and learn about some part of their Judaism,” Schor said. “They’re only 4, but they do understand some of it and it is something that will stay with them when they’re older.”

Schor said she most enjoyed watching the children cook.

“It’s the best part, eating the latkes,” she said, grinning. “It’s kind of like at Christmas, when people put up a Christmas tree and the lights and they start to feel the holiday. I think when we make the latkes and smell them cooking, we start to get the feeling of Hanukkah.”

And along with that feeling is an understanding of the holiday’s meaning, said Freida Harary of Oxnard.

“Through different holidays they learn [about] Judaism,” said Harary, whose children, Mollie, 11, and Kenny, 8, attend Congregation Am HaYam’s Torah school. “Hanukkah is about religious freedom. And for them to understand people have a right to believe and follow the religion of their choice.

“It’s part of being Jewish to pass down the traditions.”