Hanukkah in Israel
When I was a little kid in Israel, holiday crafts were all the rage. There were two that we did every single year for Hanukkah.
The first is a bottle cap menorah. Kids would collect metal bottle caps for a few weeks beforehand. Then, the teacher would help you glue the caps upside-down to a thin plank of wood. Each cap then became a candle holder — eight caps together in a row, one for each night of Hanukkah, plus one cap off to the side for the shamash, the “helper” candle that you use to light the other ones. We’d then decorate the plank of wood with markers. My parents kept the menorahs my sister and I had made for years, lighting candles in them every Hanukkah. Looking back, I’m amazed that they brought them over in the move to the US to begin with!
The second is a set of faux-stained-glass decorations. Since Hanukkah is the festival of lights, we’d make decorations with colored cellophane that we’d put in the window, for the light to shine through. We’d take black construction paper as the outlines, then put the cellophane in the holes we’d cut out. Even after moving to the US we’d make these to put in the windows, even though that’s not a standard decoration here.
One day when I have kids I think I’ll continue this same tradition.
- written by Effie Seiberg
