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Hannukah

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Jewish Holy Day Hanukkah
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Jewish Holy Day Hanukkah

Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday celebrated for eight days and nights. Jewish law says Hanukkah is one of the less important Jewish holidays. Hanukkah is much more widespread now because of the date are close to Christmas. The Hebrew calendar determines the dates of Hanukkah. Hanukkah begins on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, and concludes on the 2nd or 3rd day of Tevet. Kislev can have 29 or 30 days. These dates correspond with late November through late December on the nonspiritual calendar. According to the Hebrew calendar, Hanukkah starts at sunset on 16 December 2014, 6 December 2015 and 24 December 2016.
During the year of 2013, Hanukkah started at sunset on 27 November 2013. The American holiday Thanksgiving Day, was on 28 November 2013 during Hanukkah. This was the third time Thanksgiving occurred during Hanukkah since President Abraham Lincoln declared it a national holiday. This incident occurred last in 1899 and is said not to occur again in the foreseeable future based on the Jewish calendar.
The definition of the Hebrew word Hanukkah is dedication. This definition prompts us to realize that the Jewish holiday memorializes the re-dedication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem after the Jews successfully took conquered the Greeks in 165 B.C.E.
The Jewish Temple was taken over in 165 B.C.E. by Greek military and devoted to the reverence the god Zeus. The takeover was an unexpected defeat for the Jewish people, and they feared to retaliate. The Syrian-Greek emperor Antiochus ordered all Jews to worship Greek gods and informed them that any observation of the Jewish religion would be a crime punishable by death after 167 B.C.E.
The order established by the Syrian-Greek emperor Antiochus fueled the Jewish resistance which originated in a village called Modiin, close

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