O pinion
We Let Our Kids Plan Chanukah This Year — and it Taught
Me So Much About the Holiday
BY HANNAH LEBOVITS
WHEN I GO OUT with
my kids, we often play a
homemade game called, “I spy
with my little eye something
very Yiddish.” The kids pick
up on anything related to the
practices, laws and symbolism
of Jewish tradition.

See two triangles that almost
look like they could be a Star
of David? You win a point! A
mezuzah on someone’s door?
Two points! It’s a great way for
them to secure their sense of
identity and see themselves in
the things around them.

In prior years, during
Chanukah, the game has
reached silly levels. Living in
a Jewish community near a
major city, there are just so
many things to find that
relate to our lives. Menorahs
in windows after sunset, any
random donut shop, even a bag
of potatoes in the grocery store.

But this year, with the
pandemic making this kind
of urban exploration impos-
sible or impractical, I realized
something about the game.

Playing it outside of our home
means that my kids take the
Jewish items inside of our
home for granted. And when
preparing for Chanukah, this
became especially clear.

Because the truth is, I’ve
outsourced the Chanukah
experience more than any
other holiday. And many of
my fellow parents have done
the same.

Parents of school-aged
kids know this well. Unlike
most major Jewish holidays,
Chanukah doesn’t require any
school vacation days. And
though one day of Purim can
also be celebrated in school,
Chanukah is eight days long.

And those days are some of
the most enjoyable. Regular
academic practices are replaced
with school trips, fun activities
and, of course, lots of junk.

Community events are
early enough in the day, with
menorah lighting happening at
around 5 p.m., that even young
kids can enjoy public affairs.

The spiritual meaning of the
holiday and its timing with
Christmas make it incredibly
visible as well. So it makes
sense that many of us end
up relying on others to make
Chanukah fun, meaningful
and celebratory.

But this year, our home has
become our community. We’ve
had to learn how to adapt and
bring what we could from our
normal communal structures
into our homes. We’ve learned
a lot along the way about what
is most meaningful to our
family, about how we want our
communal spaces to change
in the future, and how we can
keep holiday traditions alive
even when we aren’t with our
families and communities.

But I hadn’t quite figured
out how to do that on
Chanukah. Our kids are in
school but are restricted in
how they can celebrate there.

Communal activities are out
of the question. We had previ-
ously traveled over Shabbat
Chanukah, which was no
longer an option either.

And then it hit me.

We can do anything.

The beauty of this holiday —
and especially of experiencing
it amid a global pandemic — is
that we have the opportunity
to make it our own. Eight full
days to play as many games
of dreidel, eat as many latkes
and sing as many songs as we’d
like. It’s an incredibly freeing
feeling. Like the lights of the
menorah, the possibilities can
expand what we might have
expected. So, with this newfound
knowledge, I turned to my
go-to fun advisory board: my
kids. They requested a parade,
dessert for dinner, dreidel with
Chanukah gelt (instead of just
chocolate chips), a game night
and something to put outside
of our home to show the world
what we’re celebrating.

We ordered some photo
booth masks and put together a
parade (which also turned into
a play). We settled on whole
wheat waffles with marshmal-
lows for “dessert for dinner”
night. We let them count out
three chocolate coins each
when they played dreidel. And
we’ve ordered our “pin the
candle on the menorah” for
game night.

But my kids’ last request
gave me pause. The idea of
decorating the outside of our
home was incredibly foreign
to me. While I myself had
grown up in an area with
many brightly lit homes on the
block, in my Orthodox Jewish
upbringing I was often taught
that the practice was exclu-
sively for those celebrating
Christmas, and that we should
be proud of our own holiday
and its traditions, which did
See Lebovits, Page 17
‘Let Our Fate Be a Warning to You’: The Significance of
Holocaust Education
BY MEG PANKIEWICZ
TREMBLING, WITH TEARS
in his eyes and panic on his face,
Sam realized he had forgotten a
small piece of bread he carried
with him in his pocket every
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM time he left the house. I pulled
the car over in an attempt to
comfort and reassure him that
we could return to his home
and he would not go hungry.

Sweet Sam. Even though this
happened almost 20 years ago,
this moment is ingrained in my
mind forever.

Witnessing the raw trauma
of Holocaust survivors, and
forming close relationships
with many of them, has been
a powerful incentive for me
in the field and mission of
Holocaust education.

I have worked for years
to modify curricula in
schools to encompass a more
multicultural approach and
promote human empathy
through literature and stories
of human suffering, and I have
seen firsthand the effects of
Holocaust education.

The Holocaust is more
than a history lesson: It can
be a road map of how to live
your life. In my studies of the
Holocaust, hearing the pleas
from the survivors to carry on
their stories — and hearing the
echoing cries of the victims as
I stood in the crematoriums
and gas chambers in Poland
— has changed every aspect
of how I live. As educators,
we are on the frontlines of
JEWISH EXPONENT
combating hate and inequi-
ties. Our roles are noble and
powerful and can transform
the way future generations
live and how they treat all
sentient beings. It is extremely
rewarding and inspiring to see
my students take the lessons of
this genocide and be proactive
in their own pursuits of social
justice and human dignity.

The FBI and the Department
of Homeland Security released
reports this past September
stating white supremacists
are the most lethal threat
to the United States. How
did we get here? Is there
something seriously lacking
in our education system? In
Haim Ginott’s book “Teacher
and Child,” he published a
letter written by a Holocaust
survivor to educators with
this plea: “Help your students
become human. Your efforts
must never produce learned
monsters, skilled psychopaths,
educated Eichmanns.”
It is not only imperative to
study the factors and reasons
behind the birth of certain
hateful ideologies but also the
reasons why they continue to
grow and flourish in society. We
have seen the horrific rise in hate
See Pankiewicz, Page 14
DECEMBER 17, 2020
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