Today is March 29, 2024 / /

Kosher Nexus
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HANUKAH MEMORIES

We have a lot of brothers and sisters- all told there are six of us. For our parents, the dominant Jewish cultural standard of a gift each night of Hanukah was a bit of a stretch. Times were tough, money was tight, and you can tell where this is going.

Our mother tried to put off as much as possible until Hanukah. Witness this conversation back in 1962: “Mom, I need underwear.” “Oh, ok, can you wait until Hanukah?” “Mom! It’s July and I need the underwear now!” Our mother’s sage answer was to walk around as much as possible in a bathing suit! The only problem? Dryness. Bathing suits always tened to be somewhat damp! And, at some point, you had to put on a pair of pants!

One year, one of the “little kids” carried on about wanting to have his own menorah. The parents said, “No,” because we lit one menorah for the family. This one brother carried on so much, however, that they finally cut some potatoes lengthwise, gouged out some holes, and, voila! Instant menorah!

A common theme that ran through Hanukah was the penny bowl. Our father would pour pennies into a bowl and we each got to take a turn grabbing as many coins as we could with one hand. After all, a three dollar and 12 cent Hanukah gift was better than no Hanukah gift.

Rumor had it that at the local Hebrew school some kids were caught playing strip dreidyl. The game got called on account of starkness! (This story was not true; we just like the punch line!)

In our house, latkes were usually fleishiq, not the least reason being that whichever one of us was given the job of grating (on the rib eisen) the potatoes usually meant some knuckle skin and blood in the mixture. Depending upon your point of view, either the best or the absolute worst part of making latkes was the fact that the house stank for days afterward. In fact, only in later years did we realize that the reason the Italian kids and the Jewish kids hung out together was we all stank from onions, garlic and frying oil!

All of us used to play dreidyl games together. Our parents would put a Barry Sisters album on the record player (this was before stereo even!) and we had a blast! Looking back, it seems so cliched, but we loved it. To this day, when we see a dreidyl, we automatically hum Bei mir bist du schoen.

When our kids were born, we promised ourself that they would never get things they needed for Hanukah, only things they wanted. Hmmmm. Wonder if they are any the better for it?