(Host) Chanukah begins on Sunday and Jewish congregations around the Burlington area will mark the occasion with the lighting of a menorah.
Lauran Burrell of Chabad of Vermont explains.
(Burrell) “It’s an absolutely giant menorah that’s going to be on the UVM green. There’s going to be lots of yummy food, latkes, which are potato pancakes, and doughnuts and dreidles and little surprises for every child that comes. So, that’s going to be lots of fun.”
(Host) There will be additional observances throughout the region during the eight days of Chanukah.
The holiday is the Jewish festival of light. It commemorates the time when the people of Israel had just a one-day supply of oil, but it burned for eight nights.
Burrell says the holiday is significant.
(Burrell) “The importance of Chanukah is that it shows that with faith and with miracles from God, that we can survive anything. And even though we were supposed to run out of oil, we were supposed to not have light, the lamp that we had burned and burned and burned. And that’s really the heart of the Jewish people, no matter what happens, we continue to burn, just the same the way as the oil did. It’s a very special time for us. It really is.”
(Host) The big community Menorah lighting celebration takes place at the green on the University of Vermont campus Sunday at 4.