What Is Hanukkah, and Why Do We Celebrate It?

Story by Lauren Cahn in the Reader’s Digest

Because Hanukkah and Christmas fall around the same time of year, people often wonder if Hanukkah is a Jewish version of Christmas. At least religiously speaking, it is not. Whereas Christmas marks the birth of Jesus, Hanukkah, which was celebrated for centuries before Jesus was born, commemorates something entirely different.

Hanukkah commemorates the victory in 164 B.C. of a group of Jewish people (the Maccabees) over the Syrian Greeks, who had been occupying the Land of Israel since before 167 B.C. Not only had the Greeks destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, but they also banned the practice of Judaism entirely. After a three-year fight, the Maccabees liberated the temple—and won the Jewish people the right to practice their religion.

In 2023, Hanukkah begins at sundown on Thursday, Dec. 7, and finishes at sundown on Friday, Dec. 15. If you’re wondering why Hanukkah falls on a different date every year, it actually doesn’t, according to the Hebrew calendar. The rededication took place on the 25th day of the month of Kislev in 164 B.C. Every year since then, the start of Hanukkah has been on 25 Kislev. But the Hebrew calendar is lunar, meaning it follows the moon, whereas most of the rest of the world uses a solar-based calendar, which follows the sun. Because the lunar and solar calendars don’t line up precisely, Hanukkah can fall anytime from late November to late December.