L’chaim, chaverim: Chanukah/Hanukkah/Chhaaannukkahhh is finally here!
Maybe the Jewish Festival of Lights, which begins tonight at sundown, isn’t as culturally dominant as Christmas, or as glitzy as New Year’s Eve, or as charmingly quaint as Boxing Day. Maybe it’s a holiday that nobody even really knows how to spell. (I grew up using no “c” and two “k”s, so that’s what I’m going to stick with for the rest of this post.) Still, it’s impossible not to love an occasion that exalts fried food, present-giving, and the menorah (or hanukiah, if you want to get technical), a celebratory candelabra that can be either sophisticated or silly.
And even though Hanukkah is much less visible in pop culture than other holidays, it’s still been immortalized on screen at least eight notable times — one for each night of the festival. Great miracles happen after the jump:
