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Figuring Out the Festival of Lights

The most entertaining entries in this year’s Tablet Hanukkah Challenge

by
Staff Notes
December 15, 2014

Earlier this month we put out a call to Tablet readers: What is the story of Hanukkah? We didn’t want people to write their answers, we wanted them to record them on their cell phones and send them to us. The results are in, and the good news is we got some highly entertaining answers, from people of all ages and from as far away as Mexico. Lots of points for humor and creativity. The less good news is, most of us really don’t have a clue what the Festival of Lights—which starts tomorrow at sundown—is all about.

Here’s a sample of the responses we got:

This was a contest, so of course there were winners. Congratulations to Joanna Brichetto, who came in first place, and to our three honorable mentions, Henry Alford, David Tuchman, and 8-year-old Miriam Newman.

You can listen to each of their entrees here, along with this week’s Vox Tablet episode, in which we call in an expert to help us figure out what Hanukkah is all about