A lot of people know about Hannukah, but do they know the story of Hannukah?
The Greeks came to Jerusalem following their king Antiochus. The Greeks didn’t let the Jews do anything that was related to Judaism. If you were caught doing something “Jewish”, you could be hung, killed sent to jail or be beaten up. But even though it was very risky, some Jews still practiced Judaism in hiding. One way the Jews would hide was they would study Torah and then when the Greeks came they would hide the Torahs and pull out Dreidels. Lots of the Jews were scared and also changed into Greek.
After the Greeks trashed the temple in Jerusalem, the Jews were done. They wanted to fight back. One brave man named Judah Maccabee decided he was going to lead the Jews. Since the Jews had lived in Israel all their lives they had the advantages because they could hide in mountains and knew shortcuts. Even though it was a huge Greek army against a couple of rebelling Jews, Judah and the rest of the Jews did not give up. After a while of fighting the Jews beat the Greeks and the Jews could be Jews in the streets.
The Jews went up to the temple and it was trashed. But all the Jews worked together and in no time the temple was cleaned up. But the one problem was the Menorah. It had stopped lighting up. There wasn’t enough oil. Making the oil took a long time. But after searching they found one small bottle of oil. In it was only enough oil for the Menorah to burn for a day. But by a miracle, it burned for 8 which was how much time they to make a more oil. That is why Hannukah lasts for 8 days.