Hanukkah Encounter of "The Furture- Mothers and Daughters" Interfaith Encounter Group on 6th December 2007:

On Thursday December 6th five mothers with their daughters met at Pnina's home in Beit Hakerem, for some two and a half hours.

At the beginning of the encounter one of the Jewish girls started to talk about Hanukkah and then the mothers clarified the issue further and explained why this holiday is celebrated and the story of the olive oil. They also spoke about the special foods of the feast and the meaning of the letters on the spinning top. They showed us the difference between a spinning top made here and the one made abroad: the difference is in one letter – in Israel it is the (Hebrew) letter "PE" that indicates "here" and abroad it is the letter "SHIN" that indicates "there" – meaning in Israel.

After the explanations the third candle of Hanukkah was lit, as this was the third day of Hannukah. The Jewish participants explained that they light 8 candles and there is a ninth one used for the lighting of the candles. With the lighting of the candle two blessings were made and following that we all ate donuts with hot drinks.

Then the girls took part in a joint activity that used colors, and started in this way to learn the names of the colors in the two languages.

We agreed that the next encounter will take place after Eid el-Adha.

Reported: Mariam Hussein
Group's coordinators: Mariam and Lia

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