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MOSCOW, Russia – On December 25th, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia will be holding several festive events in Moscow. Two of them - The 'Man of the Year' Award Ceremony and a Chanukah celebration – will be held in the city's 2,500-seat concert hall 'Rossiya'. Building on the success of these events in past years, this time tickets were sold out instantly. Last year's gala was particularly successful. That same day, on Chanukah eve, on Manezhnaya Square beside the Kremlin walls, another public ceremony will be held to mark the beginning of Chanukah – the Holiday of Light...

FORT HUACHUCA — Exodus has begun, but unlike the Israelites of old who left Egypt, those who are departing this southern Army post en mass will be back. Every year soldiers going through military training at the fort get a holiday break to spend Christmas and New Year’s with families and friends. And, for the first time, soldiers who are in their initial military occupational specialty training have been directed to wear their uniforms home. The head of the Army Accessions Command, the organization responsible for recruiting soldiers, said because the United States is a nation at war, having soldiers...

Chanukah and International Pressure By Larry Domnitch December 13, 2005 What induced Antiochus Epiphanes to attempt to eradicate Judaism? Some speculate that he had his own political motives. However, he initially had good relations with the Jews who had helped him take Jerusalem from his rival, the Egyptian Ptolemy. The chronicler of that era, Josephus Flavius mentions that Antiochus initially granted Jews the right to keep their laws. (Josephus Flavius, Antiquities, Book XII, chapter 3:3) He had also decreed that the Temple of Jerusalem continue to be respected by all as a Jewish institution under Jewish auspices. Furthermore, the attempt...

While Chanukah and Christmas are two very different holidays, this year they both had something in common. Some people tried to take them away from us! This is one of those years when G-d played a cruel trick on us. Chanukah was over before Christmas arrives. For us as Jews, things just seem to be easier and work out better when these two holidays come out at the same time. Children in our religious school can be told they have no classes during the last week of December because it's Chanukah. We are singing when the rest of America is...

While Chanukah and Christmas are two very different holidays, this year they both had something in common. Some people tried to take them away from us!

On the third night of Hanukka, 11-year-old Menachem Felzenberg, decked out in a black hat and suit, lit the Hanukka menora in the White House. Standing next to the president and first lady were his mother, brothers and sisters. He was chosen for the honor since his father is serving as a chaplain in Iraq. The leaders of the Jewish establishment filled the room. For years, some of these leaders had battled menora lightings in public places. Now they were gathered in the most public space in the country watching as a young yeshiva student lit the menora in the...

Only in America does a president light a menorah while a Jewish choral group sings Hebrew songs and the Marine band plays American songs. Only in America do Jews feel so honored as Jews and yet so completely part of the larger culture, fully Jewish and fully part of the greater nationality. Non-American Jews (including even Canadians) are often amazed at how completely American Jews in the U.S. feel. We take it for granted, but as a former college lecturer in Jewish history, I know that this is unique.

In Melbourne, Australia, the Herald Sun (the nation's largest newspaper) runs a story on how in this week of Jewish celebrations - Gardeners just "accidentally" caused this to grow - Swastikas in the midst of Chanukah? What any little tiny part of this could have been an accident? Crikey! Fairdinkum! Bob's Your Uncle! "That's about the most Bodgy claim they could make... It's a real technicolor yawn".

One of the legendary soldiers in the Lubavitcher Rebbe's army of teachers and activists who kept Judaism alive in Communist Russia in the darkest years of repression was Rabbi Asher Sossonkin, who spent many years in Soviet labor camps for his "counter-revolutionary" activities. In one of these camps he made the acquaintance of a Jew by the name of Nachman Rozman. In his youth, Nachman had abandoned the traditional Jewish life in which he was raised to join the communist party; he served in the Red Army, where he rose to a high rank; but then he was arrested for...

'It's overpowering, plain and simple. You just can't get away from it, no matter what. It's like Velcro – you know, it just sticks to you and refuses to be shaken off. "Home is your only refuge, but otherwise – at work, in the supermarket, on the subway – forget it. You're hounded by it, day in and day out." An ex-New Yorker who was a member of my aliya group in Silver Spring, Maryland, expressed those feelings during one of our meetings some years ago. He was referring to the month of December and the countdown to Christmas. In...

Up and down the street where I live, half the homes are lit up with Christmas trees, the other half with menorahs. The days are good and the nights are silent. Most of the time we can’t tell the difference between Christians and Jews. We’re too busy being just plain old Americans. You have Christmas. We have Chanukah. You have Easter. We have Passover. Does this separate us? No, this unites us, for together, this land is our land. If this sounds corny, well it is. I am offended, however. Across this nation, in cities, towns, villages and school districts,...

HAPPY  HANUKKAH". . . and May This Festival of Lights bring Blessingsupon you and All Your Loved Ones for Happiness,for Health, and for Spiritual and Material Wealth,and May the Lights of Chanukah Usher in the Light of Moshiachand a Better World for All of Humankind." The Victory over AntiochusMore than 2000 years ago, the land of Judea was ruled by Antiochus, a tyrannical Syrian king. Even today, people fight wars over their gods, despite claims to value "religious tolerance." But a couple of thousand years ago, religious tolerance didn't exist at all. Religion was as good an excuse as...

The date: December 17. The place: Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The time: 10:35 a.m.A large box-shaped contraption with wooden propellers teeters on a 200-foot wooden launching track. Engine roaring, the rickety machine suddenly lurches forward. As it chugs down the track, onlookers hold their collective breath. This is what history feels like. The flimsy flyer picks up speed. It rises an inch... two inches... six inches... and then -- PLOP! Twisting awkwardly, it belly-flops into a muddy puddle. The year is 2003. It is 100 years to the minute since the Wright Brothers made their historic flight ushering in the...

There is perhaps nothing as cold and terrifying as a midwinter night. Even the moon, usually low and welcoming, takes its retreat. It and its minion of stars glare angrily in the distance, the white light offering no respite. I think it is because of the intensity of the darkness that I have always found the candles of Chanukah so intriguing. Their tiny lights brazenly face the night's bitter challenge, and victorious, transform the harsh edge of fear into a soft caress of hope. Bathed in the candles' magical hue of triumph, the eight nights of Chanukah have always been...

The Midrash compares the Greek exile to the darkness at the beginning of creation. "No other two races have set such a mark upon the world. Each of them from angles so different have left us with the inheritance of its genius and wisdom. No two cities have counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem. Personally, I have always been on the side of both." - Sir Winston Churchill In the Chanukah story, the Jewish people put up no resistance when Alexander the Great's troops arrived. But they were quick to resist the enlightening cultural forces that the Greeks...

It looked the same, smelled the same, tasted the same. There was nothing in that little jar of oil to distinguish it from any other pure-grade, virgin olive oil. The only distinct thing about it was the seal of the high priest, signifying that it was ritually pure. But the Jews insisted on using only the ritually pure oil, and no other, to light the menorah in the Holy Temple, thus precipitating the renowned miracle of Chanukah. "Ritually pure." What, exactly, is that? What properties does a ritually pure sample of olive oil have that the others don't? What laboratory...

Fireworks will highlight Tuesday night’s planned display of the world’s largest Menorah in Jerusalem. The electric Menorah will be displayed near the Center One shopping center, adjacent to Jerusalem’s central bus station. The traditional Menorah holds eight candles that symbolize the twin miracles of a small amount of oil that burnt for eight days and the Jews’ victory over Greek invaders and 2,000 years ago. A ninth candle is used to light the other candles, which Jewish law prohibits to be used other than for enjoyment. The 65-foot wide electric menorah has nine branches, each one more than 60 feet...

Governor Schwarzenegger lit the state Christmas tree and ended a secular practice of calling it a "holiday tree." The governor made no mention of the name change that was in honor of the late Senator William "Pete" Knight. Schwarzenegger said at Knight's funeral in May that he would change the name back to Christmas tree. Knight had lobbied unsuccessfully to change the name after Governor Davis decided to call it a holiday tree. During the 73rd annual lighting, Schwarzenegger took on the role of "Triminator" as he helped a disabled girl trim the tree with the final ornament. The governor...

He has portrayed the Crucifixion - now Mel Gibson has his sights set on the tale that led to Chanukah. "The Passion of the Christ" director told WABC's Sean Hannity yesterday that he's planning a movie based on a Jewish rebellion nearly 200 years before the birth of Christ. "The story that's always fired my imagination ... is the Book of Maccabees," Gibson said in the radio interview. "It's about Antiochus, the king who set up his religion in the Temple, and forced them all to deny the true God and worship at his feet and worship false gods. "The...

Actor Mel Gibson has become the latest in a line of celebrities to question the war in Iraq. The usually-conservative movie star-director said he had been having "doubts" about President George W Bush. "It's all to do with these weapons (of mass destruction) that we can't seem to find, and why did we go over there?" he asked. Usually a Bush supporter, Gibson said a lot of what the president had done during his term in office had been "good". But he said in the WABC radio interview that he had been "having my doubts of late". Gibson is riding...