Jenny Hammond

Shanghai's Jewish community celebrates the eight days of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, beginning this Friday at sundown when families gather at home and light the first two candles of the menorah.

Each year in Shanghai, Christmas gains increased recognition as many Chinese adopt the festivities and join in the celebrations.

Other important holidays often pass virtually unnoticed. December, though, sees an important date on the Jewish calendar.

Hanukkah, or the "Festival of Lights," starts on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev and lasts for eight days and nights, beginning this year at sundown on Friday.

"This Jewish holiday is not as well known in Shanghai so it tends to be more intimate," says Uri Gutman, consul general of Israel in Shanghai.

Children make a menorah last Sunday at a pre-Hanukkah party organized by the Chabad Jewish Center of Pudong. Photo: shanghaidaily.com

Celebrations will take place in people's homes and at the Shanghai Jewish Center.

"With blessings, games and festive foods, Hanukkah celebrates the triumphs, both religious and military, of ancient Jewish heroes," says Gutman.

Hanukkah, meaning "dedication," marks the victory of the Maccabees over the Greek-Syrian ruler Antiochus IV in Jerusalem and reclaiming the great temple on Jerusalem's Mount Moriah. The temple's menorah only had enough ritually pure oil for one day, but it miraculously burned for eight days until new oil could be purified.

Shanghai once had a flourishing and cosmopolitan Jewish community of 30,000 and six synagogues in the early 1940s. Today the community has dwindled to about 2,000 people with two synagogues, one in Hongqiao and a new one in Pudong. One synagogue, historic Ohel Rachel on Shaanxi Road, is closed and only opened to the community five times a year, including for Hanukkah.

"Hanukkah has some aspects of the Christmas commercialism," says Gutman. "Like sending cards and giving gifts, but it is not on the same level as Christmas. Primarily it is a family gathering."

Children are given a gift on each of the eight days of Hanukkah.

"There is no figure like Santa Claus, so the gifts are given by parents or grandparents," says Rabbi Shalom D. Greenburg from the Shanghai Jewish Center.

Traditionally Jewish people also decorate their homes with a special candelabrum called the menorah. It holds nine candles and one is lighted each day of the holiday with the center candle used to light the other eight. Paper decorations are also put up in homes adorned with the image of the menorah.

"This year we will hold a big event in the old synagogue (Ohel Rachel) on Shaanxi Road on Sunday when candles of the menorah will be lit and we will all eat traditional food," says Gutman.

Many time-honored Hanukkah foods are cooked in oil, in remembrance of the oil that burned in the temple of Jerusalem. The most widespread Hanukkah food is latkes, or potato pancakes, a food tradition that may have developed in Eastern Europe. In Israel, the favorite Hanukkah food is sufganiya, a kind of jelly donut cooked in oil.

"We can get most of the ingredients here in Shanghai, but for what we can't get, we bring over from Israel or the United States," says Gutman.

In many Western countries, Hanukkah is more high profile; there will be "Happy Hanukkah" greetings on the television, news, radio and in the papers, says Greenburg. "In China and even Shanghai, it is more of an internal holiday in Jewish family homes."

"I have never heard of this holiday as it is a Western celebration and the only one we really hear about here is Christmas. Maybe this is because it is not much commercialized," says Meng Xiaoli a Shanghainese actor. "I know there are Jewish minorities in China, but we usually don't follow their religion in Shanghai."

Shanghai is becoming very international, says Meng.

"Foreign festivals are very good for China as they are new, fun and help you learn about different cultures that otherwise we would not encounter. Now if I meet a Jewish person, I will wish them a Happy Hanukkah."