CAPE GIRARDEANS JOIN IN HANUKKAH CELEBRATION

The start of Hanukkah, an eight-day Jewish celebration, signals the start of fun for Lynne Margolies.

The celebration of religious freedom began at sundown Sunday and continues through Sunday.

Hanukkah is celebrated in the home with the nightly lighting of another candle on the Hanukkah Menorah, a nine-branched candelabra.

Hanukkah also is known as the Festival of Lights, the Feast of Dedication and the Feast of the Maccabees.

Margolies said: "In our family we do fun things every night. We give little presents every night, but it's nothing in the magnitude of the gifts given for Christmas."

They eat fried foods, sing songs and play with the dreidle, a toy like a top.

On Sunday, she invited friends and family to a Hanukkah party to mark the first night of the celebration.

Although Hanukkah falls during the Christmas holiday season, Margolies said Hanukkah isn't the Jewish Christmas. In fact, it is a minor Jewish holiday; Passover or the Day of Atonement would more closely match Christmas in terms of religious significance, she said.

SueAnn Strom, who is also observing Hanukkah, said some families, especially those with young children, exchange presents. But gift-giving isn't part of the traditional celebration.

"It's really the story of Hanukkah that's important," she said. "We always tell the story at least once."

Margolies said, "It's a story of religious freedom."

In 165 B.C., after a three-year struggle led by Judah Maccabee, the Jews in Judea defeated Syrian king Antiochus IV. They held festivities in the Temple in Jerusalem and dedicated it to God.

According to the Talmud, when the Jews cleaned the Temple of Syrian idols, they found only a small amount of oil to light their holy lamps. But miraculously, the oil kept the lamps burning eight days.

The lighting of candles in nightly succession commemorates this miracle.