Chanukah in Karmiel (We miss you Grodzinskis)

It’s the only year of my life since my Sem gap year that I have spent my winter in a country that doesn’t “do” christmas. Can’t say I miss it really. Yes it was kind of nice curling up in front of the snowman with a hot chocolate, and having a holiday without the preparations we have to make for our own holidays, but to be honest I always felt a bit of an intruder at christmas. I mean it’s not really our chag is it? Did we really have a right to get into it? It always felt a bit false … the whole “giving” theme was completely overtaken by SHOPPING, SHOPPING and more SHOPPING, and I always felt sorry for my non-jewish friends being under pressure to buy suitable christmas presents. As someone who regards shopping as a tick-off task with the fun rating not far above cleaning toilets (unless I happen to have a voucher for some free makeup) this was always my idea of hell. At least with our “giving” chag we are given specific instructions of how and what to give, so it never descends into dire consumerism. (It’s Purim by the way, shame on you!)

You do get the odd pang though, and watching the christmas ads on tv (we only watch foreign tv here) seeing the ads for food, offers at Boots, films on telly and the lights… I did wonder whether chanukah would be fun here. I shouldn’t have been worried. It is, after all, the original festival of lights! There are lots of parties, mostly geared around children, including a freebie at the matnas and many local gatherings involve candle lighting even if the participants are not particularly religious. It’s more of a national festival, so with all the lights and sweets everywhere there is actually a sense of spirit even in a town like ours. Ulpan closes for the week so we went on 2 organised outings to various local sights (Tzfat one day and the Hula Valley the next) with weather that would have been welcome in a British summer. Jojo had a lovely week. The doughnuts however, were dire. All hard, not the right sugar-coating and nasty FLUORESCANT red filling (think that red sauce that used to come in a Marcuses takeaway and you will have the right idea) or worse no filling at all. The americans were disappointed too but being americans they have no idea what a decent wholsesome doughnut really tastes like. If Grodzinski’s sent a rep out here with that recipe, they would make a killing.

The only difference with being religiously mainstream is it feels a bit wrong going to the supermarket after the chag and buying reduced cardboard dreidels with choccies in them – whereas in England my mum had no issue buying half price chocolate Santas in January. So we left those for the goyim. A fair swap, I would say.

There is, however one bit of christmas I will be practising.  That will be the christmas pudding.  This year the chag falls on shabbat, and christmas pudding is one of the few desserts that actually improves sitting on a hotplate. Cheap brandy in Karmiel anyone???