To all those LOLers that are Jewish.....
Happy Hannukah!

Happy Khanike!

Best wishes on the 25th of Kislev.

Al hanisim v’al hapurkan v’al hag’vurot v’al hat’shuot, v’al hamilchamot she-asita la-avoteinu bayamim haheim bazman hazeh. Bimei Matityahu ben Yochanan kohein gadol chashmonai u-vanav, k’she-amda malchut yavan har’sha-a al amcha Yisrael l’hashkicham toratecha ul’ha-aviram meichukei r’tzonecha. V’ata b’rachamecha harabim amadta lahem b’eit tzaratam, ravta et rivam, danta et dinam, nakamta et nikmatam, masarta giborim b’yad chalashim v’rabim b’yad chalashim v’rabim b’yad m’atim, ut’mei-im b’yad t’horim, ursha-im b’yad tzadikim v’zeidim b’yad os’kei toratecha. Ul-cha asita t’shu-a g’dola ufurkan k’hayom hazeh. V’achar kein ba-u vanecha lidvir beitecha ufinu et heichalecha v’tiharu et mikdsashecha v’hidliku neirot b’chatzrot kodsecha v’kav’u sh’monat y’mei Chanuka eilu l’hodot ul’haleil l’shimcha hagadol.

/Edigu

Heh…

http://www.coejl.org/programbank/displayprog.php?id=122

Aryeh, LOL’s token Jew

Twas the night before Chanukah, boychiks and maidels,
Not a sound could be heard, not even the dreidels.
The menorah was set on the chimney, just right,
In the kitchen my Bubbe hut gechapt a bite.
Salami, pastrami, a glessala tay
and zayerah pickles with bagels, oy vay!
Gezunt and geschmacht, the kindelech felt,
while dreaming of tegelach and Chanukah gelt.

The clock on the mantle it sure was a tickin,
and Bubbe was serving a schtickala chicken.
A tumult arose like a thousand bruchas,
Santa had fallen and broken his tuchas.
I put on my slippers, eins, tsvay, drei,
while Bubba was now on the herring and rye.
I grabbed my robe and buttoned my gotkes,
While Bubbe was so busy, devouring those latkes.

To the window I ran and to my surprise,
A little red yamulke greeted my eyes.
When he got to the door and saw our menorah,
“Yiddishe kinder,” he said, “Kenehora.
I thought I was in a goyisha hoise,
but as long as I am here, I’ll leave a few toys.”

With much geshray, I asked, “Du bist a yid?”
“Avada, mein numen is Schloimey Claus, kid.”
“Come into the kitchen, I’ll get you a dish,
A guppell, a schtickla fish.”
With smacks of delight, he started his fressen,
Chopped liver, knaidlech and kreplach gegessen.
Along with his meal, he had a bissle schnapps,
For when it came to eating, this boy was the tops!

He asked for some knishes with pepper and salt,
but they were so hot, he yelled, “Oy gevalt!”
Unbottoning his haizen, he rose from the tisch,
and said, “Your kosher essen is simply delish.”
As he went to the door, he said “See you later.
I’ll be back next Pesach, in time for the seder.”

More rapid than eagles his prancers they came,
as he whistled and shouted and called them by name:
“Now Izzy, now Morris, now Yitzchak, now Sammy,
now Irving and Maxie and Moishe and Manny.”
He gave a geshray as he drove out of sight,
“A gutten yomtov to all, and to all a good night.”

Happy Chanukah from Tarmo the Nordic {sic} a.k.a. Gelge W. Twigg {sic} a.k.a. El Subcommandante {sic}a.k.a. You Heathen Rabbi {sic}

That is just the most adorable ditty, Jury.  I have never seen it before. Thanks for posting. I saved it to put in my Chanukah cards. 

Edigu,
This is meant for the Hebrew speaking Israelis who read the forum, I presume :)? Or to test the new language skills of some emigre Jewish Latvians? :)
The Subcommandante’s ditty is most excellent.

Juris K

Cool ditty, Heathen Rabble.
The Hannukah song book is growing by the day.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=leevees

At least on the How do you spell hannukah song, they sound sort of like They Might Be Giants without the accordion.

Aryeh

A short editorial in the Opinion section of my local paper, ‘The Halifax Reporter’:

Light the lights

In 167 B.C., the Syrian king Antiochus ruled over Judea, what is now modern Israel.  Antiochus outlawed Jewish rituals and ordered the Jews to worship Greek gods, going so far as to put a statue of Zeus into the temple in Jerusalem.  Some people acquiesed to the new order.  Others didn’t.

One who didn’t was a Jewish priest named Mathias, who was so incensed at the sight of a fellow Jew agreeing to lead the worhip of Zeus that he killed the man.  Mathias led his family into the wilderness from where he and their followers waged war against the Syrians.  A year later, Mathias died, but his son Judah, dubbed the Maccabee (’The Hammer’) defeated the Syrians in 165 B.C.

The victorious Maccabees cleaned up the descrated
temple and restored it.  The story goes that when it came time to light the temple’s menorah, there was only enough oil for a single night.  Miraculously, the oil lasted eight nights, enough time to make more.

Today, the holiday is celebrated over eight nights, with a candle lit for each night.  Food is, of course, consumed, notabley latkes-potato pancakes fried in oil.  The driedel, a top with Hebrew letters on it, is spun and gifts are exchanged.

This last tradition is a new one, and in it lays a contradiction.  The giving of gifts happens largely because of Hanukkah’s proximity to a better-known holiday that takes place this time of year.  It is, part of the same urge immigrants in the late 19th century had to become part of the larger, American culture.

But what’s Hanukkah about?  Sure, the miracle of the oil, but it’s also about not assimilating.  Rather than accept the customs of the Greeks, the Jews fought back.  But now, of course, gifts are exchanged, just like Christmas.

There’s nothing wrong with that, my family does it.  But it’s a good time to remember that the idea of assimilation does not have to mean, as
Antiochus would have had it, total capitulation to the practices of the majority.  In America, one can maintain the ancestral traditions and join in the larger celebration.  You can have your latkes and eat them too.

So, tonight, the first night of Hanukkah, is a good time to remember that what makes the country great isn’t our similarities.  It’s our differences and how we turn them into a greater whole.

Matthew Nadler

Editor

Forgot to add, Happy Hannukah or is it Hanukkah--Channukah??!!  Light the lights!

Irena

Wow! This was the last post I expected to see on LOL. Thank you to all the participants. It sure warmed my heart.

It’s the first time I have tried an attachment so I hope it comes out. We did light all the candles on Saturday as we have no one there during the week to do it daily. We’ll do it again next Saturday.:)

PS: Okay. I’ve previewed it all. No attachment. And I did follow all the prompts.

>Edigu,
>This is meant for the Hebrew speaking
>Israelis who read the forum, I presume
>:)? Or to test the new language skills
>of some emigre Jewish Latvians? :)
>The Subcommandante’s ditty is most
>excellent.
>
>Juris K

Shalom Mr. Kaža,

It was just a prayer for Khanike.  No hidden agenda.  No desire to “test” any of the Jews that drop in on the Latvian forums, though I might “quiz” them on another thread.

I too enjoyed mullah Zagarin’s ditty.  I suspect he may not be the author, but it was very kind of him to share.  I think semites and goyim here alike enjoyed the pantiņš.  If Peter Schickele can claim to be a forgotten son of J.S. Bach and play such wonderful music at holiday time then I suppose its OK for the gentiles to sing a few stanzas about Hannukah bushes.

/Edigu

The “test” I meant was of the extent to which Latvian/East European Jews know Hebrew. This has been a bit of an issue, since many Jews in pre-war Latvia spoke Yiddish in addition to Latvian. In fact, (Cedrins may know more) there have been visits by researchers to Daugavpils and to Lithuania to seek out old Yiddish speakers, since the language/creole/dialect is seen as dying out. The European Zionist movements favored Hebrew as the true “language of Jews”.

Juris K

Happy solstice, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, etc.

Edigu can hold forth upon the position of Yiddish just as well as he can about the dastardly Lithuanians, as far as I’m concerned—I won’t complain.

Priecīgus svētkus!

/P

Easy way to yiddish:

http://www.bubbygram.com/yiddishglossary.htm

pete