11/28/2021
At sundown on December 2, 2018 Jewish families worldwide will mark the first day of Hanukkah by lighting a candle on a special menorah. The eight-day celebration, which will end on December 10, is observed annually on the 25th day of Kislev, the ninth month of the Hebrew calendar, which falls anywhere from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar.
The festival’s origin dates back more than 2,000 years, when Antiochus IV Epiphanes ruled Judea, or the Land of Israel. The Greek king, who reigned from 175 to 164 BC, outlawed the Jewish religion, ordering Jews to worship Greek gods instead. To make matters worse, in 168 BC, his soldiers massacred thousands of people in Jerusalem and violated the city’s holy Second Temple by installing an altar to Zeus and sacrificing pigs (considered non-kosher by Jews) inside the structure’s sacred walls.
