For Chanukah, smile and say cheese!

Ok, we had a one meal holiday, Thanksgiving. You should have all aced that one. As I said last week, it was child’s play after Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot. Now back to what we’re used to: a holiday that lasts longer than a week. 

Since this is my third year at The Jewish Star, I simply cannot write about the miracle of the oil burning for eight days, potato latkes, fried doughnuts and chocolate coins anymore, I need something new — but what?

I decided to surf the Internet, which I found stories about giant menorahs being lit, giant doughnuts being fried, and there was even a fictional character on SNL called Chanukah Harry, who lived on Mount Sinai and was the Jewish version of Santa, traveling through the air in a cart pulled by three donkeys named Moishe, Herschel and Shlomo. Just as I was about to give up, something caught my eye. It was an article written about dairy food being the food of choice for Chanukah, which made sense as potatoes weren’t introduced in Europe until hundreds of years later. It spoke about why cheese ingredients were used because of a story involving a Jewish heroine named Judith. My interest was piqued at this point and I wanted to find out if this was actual fact or folklore.

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The story is told of a beautiful woman named Judith who volunteered to go to the general of the Assyrian army, General Holofernes, and offer to give him information about the Jewish army and what they were planning.

In reality, what she was really doing was trying to get inside info from him to pass along to the Jewish army. She brought along her own food because she kept the laws of kashrut. The General was smitten by her and she shared her food, which is said to have included a salty cheese which made him thirsty so that he would drink wine and become drunk. When he passed, she took his sword and beheaded him. The Israelis then launched a surprise attack on the leaderless Assyrian army and were victorious.