Festivals | Chanukah

Chanukah Story-Telling Exhibition

by Joel Bros

This display was prepared for an educational program for "MaTaI", the polder land Jews of Holland and has been reproduced for Internet with the author's permission. If you use or store the files in any form, you are obliged to acknowledge the source and include his name on them.

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1. King Antiochus Ephiphanes of Syria conquered the Jewish state
2. In a great war where he also tried to conquer other countries.
3. He issued edicts against Jewish traditions and learning
4. Because he wanted the Jewish people to practice the Greek lifestyle and other customs which were forbidden by the Torah like praying to the Greek gods.
5. When it was ordered that the Bet Hamikdash (the Temple in Jerusalem) could only be used for idol worship, the Jews in the mountainous areas of the country decided to fight.
6. The first of these was Mattityahu with his 5 sons who called to their friends to join them in an army led by Judah and fight the Greeks. This was the army of the Maccabees, and Judah was known as a Maccabee.
7. One day they went to war and they fought for 3 years.
8. They fought in the valleys
9. They fought in the forests
10. They fought in the mountains
11. And on the 25th of Kislev they won.
12. The first thing they did was to clean and purify the Holy Temple and to put the Menorah back in its place.
13. Then they had to find oil to light the Menorah immediately, but they needed another 8 days to produce new oil. They were lucky and found one container of oil intact, which was enough for one day.
14. But each day it continued to burn until the new oil arrived, 8 days later.

Activities for young children

by Gila Ansell Brauner

I. Make your own exhibition 1. Tell the Chanukah story using the pictures. 2. Work out the main points with the children; if this is a large class, divide them into twos and assign a different part of it to each pair. 3. Each child then draws one picture for a new exhibition, (so that there will be two pictures for each event in a larger class). Make up two exhibitions on opposite walls. II. Picture mix and tell 1. Print out the pictures and photocopy them for each group of 5 or 6 children. Mix up each series and put in a plastic envelope. For the youngest children you may wish to reduce the series to 10 pictures. 2. If you have already taught the Chanukah story, have children look at the pictures as a class and guess what they represent, recall the main points of the story. 3. Each table of 6 receives an envelope and they have to piece together the story from the pictures. Then they can colour the exhibition, add to the pictures, and hang it up. Chag Orim Sameach!

Lelystad, Holland, © 1998