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Hanukkah Begins

December 20, 2011 by · Comments Off on Hanukkah Begins 

Hanukkah BeginsHanukkah Begins, Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, begins at sundown tonight. Members of South Jersey’s Jewish community will observe the holiday by lighting candles each night to commemorate the rededication of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C.

The flickering candles, which grow in number each evening, mark the miracle of the temple’s oil, which was enough for one day but stayed lit for eight.

Celebrants also mark Hanukkah with family get-togethers, typically marked by the exchange of gifts and the enjoyment of treats like potato latkes, jelly doughnuts and gelt, or chocolate coins.

Community events today include a lighting of a public Menorah at 6 p.m. in Medford. The event at Main Street and Allen Avenue is sponsored by Chabad-Lubavitch. The group also will host 6 p.m. lightings, or kindlings, at the J.C. Penney Court in Cherry Hill Mall on Wednesday and outside Haddonfield’s library at 60 N. Haddon Ave. on Thursday.

Among other events, it will hold a Car Menorah Parade, which is to begin at 5 p.m. Sunday outside the Chabad Center, 1925 Kresson Road, Cherry Hill. Also Sunday, the Katz Jewish Community Center in Cherry Hill will host two events.

From 10 a.m. to noon, the center at Springdale and Kresson roads will host a Hanukkah breakfast for children, featuring characters from “Toy Story.”

An all-age celebration will offer kosher Chinese food, latkes and comedy from 7 to 9:30 p.m.

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