Festivals | Chanukah

Activities for Chanukah

1. Drama and Reading

Prepare a mime, accompanied by explanation and appropriate music, for the following ceremonies:

• Lighting of torches across the hilltops between Jerusalem and Babel in Temple times, in order to announce the new month.
• Lighting a yarzheit candle.
• Lighting Shabbat candles
• Lighting Hanukkah candles.

2. Candle Games

The following two activities involve the use of fire and/or matches. In all cases adult supervision is necessary. Teachers and campers must follow the fire safety regulations at all times!

• Fire Hazard

  Blindfold two contestants. Place two candles and two boxes of matches on the floor. Spin the contestants round a few times. At the sound of a whistle, they have to crawl on the floor to find a candle and matches. The first to light a candle is the winner.

• Blind Man's Light

  Choose 4 teams of two - one out of each pair covers his/her eyes. A lighted candle, the shamash, is placed in his/her hands, and (s)he must light his/her hanukkiyah by following his/her partner's instructions. Make the hanukkiyot out of yoghurt containers filled with sand, spaced slightly apart.

• Relay Race

  The competing teams stand at a distance of about 4 metres from the hanukkiyot. Each team member must reach the hanukkiya in a different way (hopping, on all fours, spinning etc.) and light one candle.

3. Parlor Games

• My Miracle

  Build a large svivon. Each participant thinks of one miracle that has happened to them or to someone close to them, or which s/he read about in the newspaper or a book. (Look preferably for miracles which happened in our time). The participants sit in a circle, and the madrich spins the large dreidel. The person in front of whom it stops has to relate his/her miracle. Anyone who has not found a miracle forefeits, by singing a Hanukkah song. (You can also spin a bottle).

• Heroes

  This game is based on the saying in Pirkei Avoth, 5 - "mighty at eighty".

  Divide the participants into sub-groups. Each sub-group must find eighty names of Jewish heroes/personalities in the shortest time. The group to finish first gains 10 points. In addition, each group receives a point for any hero not listed by the other groups.

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  • Variations:
    • (1) Sort the list into categories.
    • (2) Each group gives a short history of the heroes not listed by the other groups.
  • Discussion: Big hero - little hero
    • Who is a hero?
    • How is heroism expressed in daily life?

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• Hanukkiya Building Competition

  Have the teams make a hanukkiya which can be reused during the rest of the festival.

• Living Hanukkiyot Competition

  Live sculptures in teams (this can be great fun!)

• An Unusual Sketch

  Materials:
  4 svivonim. Instead of the letters nun, gimmel, heh, shin/peh, each svivon is marked with four items of information, as follows:

  • Time dreidel
    2000 C.E
    167 B.C.E. (the Hasmonean Revolt)
    King David
    1994
  • Place Dreidel
    Hospital Paradise
    Hell
    The Zoo
  • Participants' Dreidel
    Maccabees Cohanim
    Greeks
    Us
  • Style Dreidel
    Questions and Answers Newspaper staff
    TV program
    Street advertising

  Procedure: Divide the participants into groups. A representative of each group [in turn] spins all four svivonim. Each group has to prepare the story of Hanukkah in the context of the four items of information which it received from the dreidels.

  Each group has 3-5 minutes to perform the sketch. A panel judges the performances of the groups in order to select the best and most original play.

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from "RAK REKA", edited by Barbara Weill