By By JONATHAN CLAYBORNE
Staff Writer
The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah began at sundown Friday, rekindling warm memories for many area participants in the Jewish faith.
“It’s a holiday about freedom, so that’s basically what I usually think about is religious freedom for the most part,” said Wendy Klein, a mother of three who lives in Greenville.
“And because I’m an American, we’re lucky to live in a country where supposedly people don’t judge you by what religion you are,” she added.
Klein planned to host a Hanukkah celebration at her home for members of the Greenville synagogue, Congregation Bayt Shalom.
In Klein’s house, as in her childhood home, each family member has his or her own menorah, which is a candelabra with nine branches.
A single candle is lit on each night of Hanukkah, symbolizing the miracle of a temple lamp that, in the Jewish tradition, had enough fuel for just one day, but it burned for eight days.
Klein said that, with one menorah for each family member, on the last night of the holiday her house might be brightened by 45 candles.
“It’s really pretty spectacular,” she said.
Though the lighting of the menorah is a mainstay of Hanukkah, adherents to the faith indicated that personal observances of the occasion differ in small ways from family to family.
“It’s a hard thing to put into words, so much of it,” said Howard Shokler, who retired as an education administrator at Pitt County Memorial Hospital.
“Most of the stuff ends up being food and family, is where most of it comes together,” he said.
For Shokler, latkes, or potato pancakes, and chocolate coins are integral facets of the tradition.
Shokler, a Greenville resident, said one of his funniest Hanukkah memories actually has nothing to do with the holiday.
His family established a tradition called a “pickle-barrel exchange,” in which siblings or other relatives would pass on a previously received gift he or she would rather have left in the package.
“I guess now we call it regifting,” he said.
Some of Shokler’s recollections also involve the lighting of the menorah, an experience that he described as being ultimately evocative of the holiday.
“The holiday itself, in terms of the lighting of the candles, it’s to me a very special time,” he said.
Washington resident Sean “Nico” Nathan said that he is not a devout or orthodox Jew, but that he still lights candles in observance of the holiday.
He said his family, which consists of Jews and Christians, tries to incorporate a little Christmas into Hanukkah.
“We usually give one gift each night of Hanukkah,” he said.
Nathan said he grew up in Washington, Ind., a town that was smaller than the Washington in which he lives currently.
“You always get questions when you’re in small places and you’re the only Jew,” he said.
But there are quite a few Jewish people in the area, he noted, adding that he has met some of them in his capacity as a restaurateur.
Gift-giving is also common in the Klein household, where one small item is given each night.
Klein said that, when they were younger, her children loved to hand out IOUs in place of more extravagant gifts.
“Now, they’re bigger IOUs,” she said, after noting that most of the gifts are minute and often handmade.
Klein, Nathan and Shokler indicated that some people harbor misperceptions about Hanukkah.
“Hanukkah is not a big religious holiday,” Klein said. “Actually, it’s not even mentioned in the Bible, so it’s not a really significant holiday.”
Also, Hanukkah isn’t “the Jewish Christmas,” she said.
And the holiday tends to fall on different dates because Jewish holidays are based on the lunar rather than the solar calendar, she pointed out.
“People have a hard time wrapping their brains around that one,” Klein said. “Sometimes I do, too.”
For Shokler, one of the greatest gifts of the season came when his fellow hospital staff members recognized his faith and held a Hanukkah celebration on campus.
The festivities came complete with apple sauce, potato pancakes and a candlestick, he said.
“We’d just sort of party up for about an hour,” he said. “It was always nice for them to acknowledge a little diversity.”
For more information on Hanukkah, visit www.chabad.org.