‘Driedels and Donuts’ Celebration

PONTE VERDA BEACH, FL — Dan Safra of Ponte Vedra Beach gave his 1-year old son Eitan a taste of kosher falafel, a pita filled with vegetables, fried chickpeas and hummus.

Abigail Fixel, 3, of Ponte Vedra Beach sat perfectly still as Sandra Lee of Atlantic Beach painted a blue menorah on her cheek.

Ariel Levites, 7, of the West Beaches, grabbed a large dreidel and gave it a spin, trying to win chocolate coins.

“This is a great party,” said Steven Israel, who celebrated the first night of Hanukkah Tuesday with his grandchildren and wife, Judy, at a celebration sponsored by Chabad at the Beaches held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Ponte Vedra Beach.

“It brings the community together,” he said.

Jewish people of all ages from the Beaches attended the two-hour “Dreidels and Donuts” event that included a menorah making workshop, arts and crafts, food, a spin-the-giant-dreidel game for children and an outdoor menorah lighting ceremony.

Hanukkah is an eight-day Jewish holiday that celebrates the victory of a group of Jewish people called the Maccabees over the Syrian Greeks in ancient Judea around 165 B.C.

The “festival of lights,” when a candle on a menorah is lit each night, commemorates a miracle when a tiny jug of oil that held one day’s supply lasted for eight days.

Chabad at the Beaches, a center for Jewish life based in Ponte Vedra Beach, also celebrated its fourth anniversary at the festival, which featured a casino dreidel game for the kids.

Dreidels, or toy tops marked with Hebrew letters, have historic significance during Hanukkah because Jewish children played with them in ancient times.

When Syrian Greeks ruled the land, they forbade Jews from studying the Torah. Jewish parents taught their children the Torah in secret, and when soldiers came around the children played dreidel games as a cover.

“Nun, gimmel, hay or shin,” Rabbi Nochum Kurinsky shouted as each child took a turn to spin.

Assistant Sara Sandhaus said the letter “nun” stands for “nes” or miracle; “gimmel” stands for the word “gadol,” which means “great;” “hay” stands for “happened;” and “shin” stands for “sham,” which means “there.”

“A great miracle happened there,” she said as children winning chocolate coins squealed with delight.

When it was time to light the 8-foot-tall menorah everyone went outside to the hotel’s courtyard.

The menorah symbolizes religious freedom, Kurinsky said.

“We light up the menorah outside specifically to light up the darkness and bring joy. You light one small candle and all the darkness goes away.”