Author Description

Product Description Transforms Hanukkah from a chest-thumping celebration of a military victory into a brilliant Festival of Peace. Hanukkah has previously been regarded as a minor holiday. This Guidebook raises Hanukkah up to a festival of major proportions, encouraging you to climax the holiday season with a year-end Hanukkah Seder, complete with Four Questions, symbols, a festive meal, and a joy that surpasses even that of Passover! The prize-winning essays On Christmas Trees and Hanukkah Bushes and Santa Claus as Gift-Giver are worth the price of the book alone. A magnificent achievement, drawing the Festival of Light out from under the shadow of Christmas, allowing it to even eclipse its seasonal partner in meaning and significance for our time. From the Publisher The Hanukkah Haggadah is not written for European Jews or Oriental Jews or Israeli Jews. It is written for Jewish people living in the United States who realize that they are the heirs to two traditions at the same time: Jewish tradition and American tradition. This Guidebook beautifully synthesizes the values of both, while preserving the integrity of each. It reflects the enormous contribution Judaism has made to American culture, while showing how American Democracy remains a potent instrument through which to fulfill the teachings of Judaism. This book has further implications for Americans of all kinds. As the noted anthropologist, Margaret Mead, has pointed out: "Just as Americans have learned ways in which diverse peoples may live together, so they have as their cultural birthright a share in the traditions of each." From the Author Scholars continue to insist that Hanukkah is just a minor holiday, yet those of us who live in the United States know that it has become a major one. Now we must concentrate on how to celebrate it properly, so that it does not become a carbon copy of Christmas, but rather a great celeb