Happy Holiday (2002)

Thursday, December 06, 2012

November 17, 2002
Dry Bones cartoon: Kirschen, chanukkah, hanukkah, holiday, Jewish culture, Rabbi, Judaism

This Saturday night is the first night of Hanukkah... In 2013 I will have been doing Dry Bones for 40 years. And every year I anguish over how to spell the name of the holidsy... So Have a Happy!

Labels: Chanukkah, Hanukkah, Holiday, Jewish Culture, Judaism, Rabbi

6 Comments:

At 7:09 AM, Jonathan B. Horen said...: Cute... misspelling "holiday". But seriously, I have THE solution to your problem: Write it in HEBREW!!!

חג חנוכה שמח
At 8:40 AM, Denis Kassel said...: Just write : חנוכה
At least in Israel, everybody aggrees
At 10:08 AM, Anonymous said...: Then there are the kids who say"christimaskanzahunakah" for the whole season
At 7:20 PM, Anonymous said...: This year, I am lighting ALL EIGHT candles every night.

Why not? It's "My Chanuka". Says so in the Gemmora, Shabbos 21b.
At 12:20 PM, sparrow said...: Glad it isn't just me!
At 11:33 PM, David said...: The "Channukah" spelling highlights that fact that the word begins with a "chet" letter and not a "heh" letter.

There is a "ch" sound in just about every (e.g. German, Dutch, Swiss) European language. Even the United Kingdom has an equivalent in the Lo"ch" Ness Monster. In South Africa, the "ch" sound has an equivalent in Afrikaans.

It's seems like the Hannukah spelling is almost exclusive to the United States, because the American language (understood largely by people who otherwise speak real English) does not have a "ch" equivalent sound or letter.

So, your cartoon comes at as a dig on Americans ignorant of Hebrew pronunciation.

Another American peculiarity is the (obviously commercial) mixture of Channukah with the holiday celebrated (at least in gift form) with the general populace.

Is it really part of the Chag to give and receive gifts (channukah gelt maybe) and have parties, or is that something we do because we've assimilated into the local culture or to try to keep the kids Jewish? Wasn't that "culture" something we we're trying to distance from in the Greeks?

Channukah Sameach.