Chanukah is a great holiday for kids. Games, fried foods, lighting candles— add in the Americanization of the holiday with gifts, and it’s an easy favorite.
Plus, there’s the simple narrative of the holiday— the dual miracles of the impossible war, and the oil that burned for eight days. But there’s lots we don’t bother to tell kids about the holiday, that, I have learned, really piques their attention. Use your best judgment— don’t tell a kindergartener about a man being crushed to death, for example. And some of the fascinating geopolitics might be a bit sophisticated for even the most precocious of tykes. But here are some great ways to make a Jewish child question their entire holiday experience up to this point:
Gabriela Geselowitz is a writer and the former editor of Jewcy.com.