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The biggest menorah in the world was built and lit in New York City at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street for Hanukkah in 2017. The giant menorah stood 36 feet tall and weighed a whopping 4,000 pounds. The city has continued to use the menorah to celebrate the h

Have you ever wondered why you can spell Hanukkah in so many different ways?
Since the English language has no direct equivalent to the letter "chet," with which the word Hanukkah begins in Hebrew, it's commonly spelled both "

According to the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, for many years, upper-class Germans rejected the potato pancake, as potatoes were considered a lower-class food. It wasn't until the 1840s that the tradition of potato latkes caught on—and only following a crop failure that l

According to Tori Ave, food blogger and founder of the popular blog The Shiksa in the Kitchen, the pancakes originally served during Hanukkah weren't made out of potatoes—they were made out of cheese. The cheese once used in latkes was supposed to recall how Judith

The same goes for potato pancakes, or latkes, which also fall into the mix of traditional Hanukkah foods.

"These are foods that are particularly saturated with oil, so they help us recall the mirac

Ever wondered why jelly doughnuts, or sufganiyot, are traditionally served at Hanukkah? Mason explains that fried foods, like donuts, recall the original Hanukkah miracle of the oil burning for eight d

Some Jewish holidays, like Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, can only fall on certain days of the week to avoid coinciding with the sabbath, Shabbat. However, Hanukkah has fewer limitations and can begin on any day of the week except for Tuesday, according to Chabad.

That's due to the fact that the mo

While you'll find Christmas and other religious holidays on fixed dates on the Gregorian calendar, Hanukkah moves around from year to year. That's because the holiday begins on the 25th of Kislev on the Jewish calendar.

While gifts are frequently exchanged on Hanukkah, Rabbi Dave Mason, author of The Age of Prophecy, says that doing so is a relatively modern practice.

"It's a custom that started recently in predominantly Christian countries so the Jewish kids wouldn't feel

Christmas isn't the only winter holiday astronauts have brought with them to space. In 1993, while aboard the space shuttle Endeavor, astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman brought a menorah (the Hanukkah candle holder) and a dreidel (the holiday's top), which he played on a televised broadcast in celebration of Hanukkah.