Foto Friday – Hanukkah in Jerusalem
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Travel
Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, starts tonight with the lighting of the first candle on the hannukiya – the seven-branched menorah. Jerusalemites have a tradition of lighting oil based hannukiyot encased in glass boxes against the wind. It is a beautiful sight.
© pmos_nmos
Of course, it is more dramatic when lit up at night!
© RomKri
© RomKri
Hanukkah this year fell on a chilly Friday but despite the foreboding clouds it felt like the city was settling into a holiday mood, with young couples taking their babies out for a stroll at the new Mamilla Mall and overwhelming demand for sufganiyot at the Roladin bakery-cafe.
Both Nicky and David have blogged about the caloric and nutritional disaster that is our local holiday fare, so I will only add that Roladin has, for several years now, taken up the mantle of master sufganiya baker. They’ve created a whole series of so-called gourmet doughnut delights – the “Hanukkah Collection 2009″ – ranging from pistachio and banana to dulce de leche as well as the traditional red mystery jam. They’ve also devised a gaily decorated long square box for easy transport.
This week’s photos of Hanukkah in Jerusalem are courtesy of the wonderful Jerusalem Shots site. I should note that, as I do each time before sitting down to write the holiday column, I tried to figure out the current spelling of the Festival of Lights’ name, this time putting Google on the case with the following results: Hanukkah – 1,920,000 hits; Chanuka – 222,000; Hanuka – 219,000; Hannukah – 141,000 ; Channukah – 129,000; Chanukka – 71,800; Hannuka – 66,100. So, (although it’s not spelled as it was when I was a girl) — Hanukkah wins.
Paper boats for three solstices
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Religion, coexistence
Every year, Chanuka is arguably the biggest week for children’s entertainment offerings across Israel, with options ranging from lavish pop stage productions like Festigal to museum activities to themed expositions at shopping malls.
Somewhere in-between all of the above is the free Origami Festival set to take place at the Jaffa Port tomorrow and a week from today. The festival explores the nautical theme inherent to its setting by offering workshops on how to fold square pieces of paper into sailboats according to Japanese craft traditions. Participants will also be given the opportunity to race their boats against one another on a specially prepared track, complete with fans to help replicate windy conditions, and prizes will be awarded to the victors.
The other theme to the festival that resonates with its setting is coexistence. Jaffa is home to sizeable Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities that live side by side, so the festival is a celebration of the winter solstice holidays of all three faiths – hence the justification for its pre-Chanuka launch.
Origami actually has a tradition of being tied to coexistence-themed initiatives. Famed Hiroshima atomic bomb victim Sadako Sasaki, who died in a hospital in 1955 of leukemia, spent her final days folding paper in to cranes, inspired by an old Japanese adage that those who fold 1000 cranes are entitled to a wish. Since then, Sadako and her folding efforts have been employed as a symbol for mankind’s longings to get along, and it was based on these teachings that Miri Golan founded the Israeli Origami Center, based in Ramat Gan, in 1993.
Golan and the IOC have held many ethnic-encounter workshops and events, including a major convention in Jerusalem’s Old City this past July, which was attended by many of the world’s ambassadors to Israel, many of the superstars of the international Origami scene and 1500 folded works of art sent as blessings for peace in Jerusalem by craftsmen of many faiths. The organization’s activities have also included Folding Together, a series of workshops bringing Israel’s Muslim and Jewish youth together via origami since 2002.
Eight wicked branches
Filed under: General, Holidays, Religion, Technology
It’s been a while since there was a bona fide technological development in the world of the chanukia. I’m not sure if the all-ice ritual candelabra of 2004, displayed proudly in Russia, counts – that’s more of one-off stunt than a development that helps the layman.
For a few years now, a product called Ner Light has been making oil wick setup easier. Lighting olive oil candles is considered to be more a beautiful and authentic practice than lighting standard wax candles, so Ner Light’s approach, which takes messy pouring and the frustratingly time-consuming wick floating process out of the picture, is a major enabler – even if it’s less fun than getting your fingers all greasy.
Now, with Chanukkit, a Pardes Chana-based independent product designer/inventor named Jonathan Bar-Or has done for wax users what Ner Light did for oil lovers. No more melting your candles to their clumsy metal cups for eight nights. Now the chanukia is the candles, so there’s nothing to set up.
With nearly 20 years of experience under his belt, Bar-Or specializes in biotech, agricultural, cosmetic and consumer innovations. His previous product design projects have included devices for treating orthosis, for DVT prevention, mouth guards for epileptics, a telemedicine sensor glove, a spine traction neck brace, a produce labeler, a facial skin treatment patch, an oral imaging system and a tooth-mounted electro-saliva stimulation device.
The world of kitschy religious ritual items seems to be new to him, but when Bar-On was hired to develop the Chanukkit as a corporate gift, he saw great potential for mass-market appeal.
With four nights remaining until the start of Chanuka, it might not be too late to order a set via the ArtLook catalog and other niche retailers.
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