For over 2,000 years, Jewish people have celebrated and enjoyed the festivities that arose out of Hanukkah — and are cherished by many members of Branson’s student body and faculty.
The eight-day Jewish celebration known as Hanukkah marks the time when the Jews rose up against their Greek-Syrian oppressors in the Maccabean Revolt. When Antiochus IV Epiphanes rose to power, he outlawed the Jewish religion and massacred Jerusalem’s Second Temple, but the Jews fought back and reclaimed their land.
The Jew Crew Affinity hosted a Hanukkah celebration at Branson on Dec. 10 for Jewish families and Dec. 12 for the Branson community.
Two students, Zach Redlin ‘25 and Eyla Bauer ‘25, shared their experiences as members of Jew Crew and their favorite parts of Hanukkah.
“I think everyone feels really included and involved because everyone there has something in common,” said Bauer. “Everyone [in the affinity space] knows you can be there for each other and makes a great sense of community.”
Bauer expressed her love for the familial traditions of Hanukkah.
“In my family, we always light the menorah and listen to a bunch of Hanukkah music,” said Bauer. “We also open presents because it’s a fun sense of family, just being together.”
Redlin also shared some of his favorite Hanukkah traditions.
“One or two nights out of the eight, we make homemade latkes in my house, so we get shredded potatoes and make the latkes by frying them in a big pan of oil,” Redlin said. “The whole house smells good and we all put applesauce or sour cream or sugar on top of them. We play some dreidel, light the menorah and have a nice evening together.”
Redlin added that he learned his favorite Yiddish (Jewish language) word stems from his grandfather and his past ancestors.
“My favorite Yiddish expression is definitely chaim yankel, which means ‘idiot’ or ‘stupid,’ and that’s passed down from my grandfather,” he said. “Whenever he’s driving and someone makes a bad decision on the road, he’ll yell chaim yankel at them.”
There aren’t many negatives to Hanukkah, but Redlin mentioned one part that irritates him.
“It’s hard to find a least favorite thing with the holidays, but it’s probably when people assume that Hanukkah is our most important holiday because it’s next to Christmas, which isn’t necessarily the case,” Redlin said.
Redlin spoke to how important it is to be surrounded with family during the holidays.
“I feel like the best part about Hanukkah is that it’s a big holiday celebration in a time of big holiday celebrations,” said Redlin. “It’s really cool that Jews get to have their own celebration too and hang out with family and do holiday things.”
