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There is a particularly American Hanukah story that occurred when Washington and his troops were at Valley Forge during Christmas of 1777. Dan Adler’s article “Hanukkah at the White House” recounts this tale of George Washington’s encounter with a Jewish soldier: “In December, 1778, General George Washington had supper at the home of Michael Hart, a Jewish merchant in Easton, Pennsylvania. It was during the Hanukkah celebration, and Hart began to explain the customs of the holiday to his guest. Washington replied that he already knew about Hanukkah. He told Hart and his family of meeting the Jewish soldier at...

Kamala Harris, or ‘Black Hillary’ as Redstater Jeff Charles calls her, has got to be the most cringe politician of the last decade, at least in so far as someone who has risen to the top levels of our government. To the extent that there’s a comparison, and there certainly is, she makes Hillary look charismatic. Almost as if to provide more evidence of this, the Biden transition team decided it’d be a good idea to ask Harris what Hanukkah is about on video, because being married to a secular Jewish man apparently qualifies her to do so. What follows...

Happy Hanukkah to all our Jewish readers around the world. On this penultimate "crazy night", I thought it appropriate to look out a slab of Hanukkah Hollywood, but the pickings are thin, save for this 2002 offering from my sometime fellow Granite Stater Adam Sandler. Born in Brooklyn, Sandler grew up in New Hampshire and was discovered in an LA comedy club by Dennis Miller, who recommended him to "Saturday Night Live". Eight Crazy Nights was a flop on its first release but has become something of a cult film, and is in its way a significant cultural artifact: a...

Hanukkah is the festival when Jews celebrate their victory in the fight for religious freedom more than 2,000 years ago. Tragically, that fight is no less important today, and not only for Jews, but for people of all faiths. The Jewish story is simple enough. In about 165 B.C., Antiochus IV, ruler of the Syrian branch of the Alexandrian empire, began to impose Greek culture on the Jews of the land of Israel. Funds were diverted from the Temple to public games and drama competitions. A statue of Zeus was erected in Jerusalem. Jewish religious rituals such as circumcision and...

. If I were a Reform rabbi; if I were a leader of the establishment whose money and prestige have succeeded in capturing for himself the leadership and voice of American Jewry; if I were one of the members of the Israeli Government's ruling group; if I were an enlightened sophisticated, modern Jewish intellectual, I would climb the barricades and join in battle against that most dangerous of all Jewish holidays - Chanukah. It is a measure of the total ignorance of the world Jewish community that there is no holiday that is more universally celebrated than the "Festival of...

The pendulum swings both ways. Last year in Denver, it was Mayor John Hickenlooper proposing to replace the city's traditional "Merry Christmas" sign with one that said "Happy Holidays." The mayor wisely backed off in response to the public outcry, as did the Parade of Lights, this year, reversing its policy barring religious floats. Earlier this month, Speaker of the U.S. House Dennis Hastert, issued a directive instructing the architect of the Capitol to drop the name "Capitol Holiday Tree" - adopted in the late 1990s under the authority of no one who's now willing to admit to it -...

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," Dec. 15, 2004, that has been edited for clarity. BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Christmas Under Siege" segment tonight. As you know, the religious symbols of the federal holiday are under fire by secular forces all across the country. And in the Miami suburb of Bay Harbor Island, town officials there banned the nativity scene on public property while okaying a menorah for Hanukah. So Sondra Snowdon, a resident, sued. And today, she won. Joining us now from Miami is Ms. Snowdon. And from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ed White, an attorney...

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...

Ah, a magical season begins. Joy blooms in the marly soil of the heart, even when the face of the earth is bedded in frost. Lights twinkle in adoring eyes whose gaze pierces the blanket of looming night. Weary combatants of the battlefield and the home front lay aside their foils and their barbs and huddle close in grateful peace. Avast, avaunt, yon anomie; aboard, ye bonhomie! Jews and Christians may debate the provenance of the season's power, but the Bard speaks for both: The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit can walk...

[Q NOTE: THIS SECTION ON CALCULATED ODDS is one of the most exciting, to me. I believe the facts presented in this section are very incredible, very AWESOME.] The Scrabble Factor The seven Hanukah ELSs appear within a 1,123 letter long section of text, which is somewhat smaller than the 1,584 letter long section that is crossed by all of the Isaiah 53 ELSs that are at least as significant as the Hanukah finds. So the two source texts are fairly comparable in size. In reality most of the Isaiah 53 cluster is concentrated in the last half of the...