By Alyssa Moses
Bright candles and potato pancakes characterize the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, which began earlier this week.
Hanukkah, also known as 'The Festival of Lights,' is celebrated for eight successive days beginning on the 25th day of Kislev, the third month of the Jewish calendar year. This year, Hanukkah started on Tuesday at sunset and lasts until sunset on Dec. 12.
The Van Doren family in Carlisle, Pa., celebrates Hanukkah by lighting the menorah, eating Jewish food and playing dreidel.
'I really looked forward to Hanukkah as a kid,' said 18-year-old Natalia Van Doren. 'It was our Christmas substitute and time to be with family.'
The purpose of this holiday is to commemorate a miraculous event in Jewish history.
Around 175 B.C., foreign rulers desecrated the Jewish temple. After regaining control over their temple 10 years later, the Jewish people rededicated the temple by lighting a menorah, representing their covenant with God.
The oil for the burning candles was only enough for one day but miraculously burned for eight days until more oil could be made. Hanukkah, which means 'rededication,' lasts for eight days celebrating this miracle, according to the Jewish Outreach Institute Web site.
In the evening before each one of the Hanukkah days, Jewish families light the corresponding number of candles.
Candle shipments, targeted mostly to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa celebrations, cost $1.3 billion in 2002 for the nation''s manufacturers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In addition to candles, potatoes are also a Hanukkah tradition. Last year, the amount of potatoes used during Hanukkah was equal to one half of the nation''s potatoes produced in Idaho and Washington in a year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The potatoes are used to make potato latkes -- pancakes made out of potatoes and fried in oil.
Even the frying oil is symbolic of the miraculous burning of the oil of which this holiday celebrates.