Hanukkah Food Traditions

Like most Jewish holidays, Hanukkah comes with its own special food traditions and recipes. Soofganiot (doughnuts) and latkas or livivot (potato pancakes) are popular Hanukkah treats. Traditionally, fried food and dairy food are eaten during Hanukkah. 

Why Fry?

Fried food reminds us of the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days when the Maccabees purified and rededicated the holy Temple in Jerusalem. Potato pancakes (latkas in Yiddish and Livivot in Hebrew) and doughnuts (soofganiot in Hebrew) are traditional Hanukkah treats.

Some rabbis have taken the explanation of why we eat fried food on Hanukkah one step further. They say that oil is like studying Torah in two ways.
1) Oil is not a food we eat by ourselves and not necessary for out daily existence. It simply adds pleasure to our food and life, as does the study of Torah.
2) Oil has the potential to illuminate. If you stand in a dark room you can light oil to see the room around you. Study of Torah can also illuminate our world for us.

Why Dairy?

Dairy is often eaten on Hanukkah to remind us of the story of the Jewish heroine, Yehudit (Judith).

Yehudit saved her village which was under siege by the Syrians. The Syrians were trying to starve the Jews so they would surrender. She went to the governor of the Syrians troops and brought him cheese and wine. She got him drunk. After he collapsed on the floor, Yehudit took his sword and beheaded him. She brought his head back to her town in her basket. The next morning the Jews attacked the Syrian troops. When the Syrians ran to their governor and found him on the ground beheaded, they got scared and fled. Thus Yehudit saved her town. In memory of this story, it has recently become a tradition to eat dairy food on Hanukkah.