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As Jewish families around the world prepare for the second of eight nights of Hanukkah, the Brooklyn Jewish Children's Museum is giving children a hands-on approach to learning about the holiday.

JCM Celebrates Chanukah Miracle Hands-On

NY1

As Jewish families around the world prepare for the second of eight nights of Hanukkah, the Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum is giving children a hands-on approach to learning about the holiday.

The museum in Crown Heights is offering a number of fun activities for kids this holiday including a workshop on making the olive oil used to light the menorah.

Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, marks the Jews’ victory more than 2,000 years ago over Syrian-Greeks who had taken over Jerusalem and the Holy Temple there. After re-claiming the temple, a day’s worth of oil needed to keep the candles there lit lasted instead for eight days.

“That’s the central miracle of the oil that we commemorate on Hanukkah today, and that’s why we light the menorah for eight days, each night,” said Rabbi Nissen Brenenson of the Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum.

To teach about the importance of the oil, visitors to the museum can see olives pressed, the juice put into a centrifuge and separated into wax and oil.

“Pressing it and seeing how the oil actually came from little olives is really actually very cool,” said one young visitor.

“You actually see what products they use and how do they make it,” said another.

The museum also offers cooking lessons on how to make the tractional holiday foods, including potato pancakes known as latkes.

“From generation to generation the miracle of Hanukkah has been preserved through the oil. And where do we use oil the most? In food,” said Moshe Kravitsky of the Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum.

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