Nestled along the eastbound Henry Hudson Parkway near 238th Street in Riverdale sits Atria Senior Living, an independent assisted living and memory care center in the northwestern part of Bronx.
On Friday, Dec. 8 – the second day of Hanukkah – dozens of Atria’s residents and family members gathered in a communal dining space around a long table with an electric Menorah at its center for what Atria called the “Foods of Hanukkah.”
Lining the walls and on the countertops were decorative symbols of Judaism including dreidels and the Star of David. The smell of fried dough and potatoes filled the air as latkes and hand-filled sufganiyot – the Hebrew word for jelly donuts – were served.
“Hanukkah means a dedication of something; in this case, the Jewish tradition” explained Rabbi Glen Ross, a Jewish religious teacher based in Riverdale.
Ross often leads Shabbat services for the memory impaired and on Dec. 8, he walked around the center offering Hanukkah blessings and challah bread to Atira’s residents and guests.
The earliest mentions of Hanukkah can be traced back to the sixth century C.E. in the Gemara but descriptions of the story involving a 2nd century B.C. conflict between Jewish people and the Greeks, along with the lighting of the eight-day candle, can be found in the books of the Maccabees as early as 100 B.C.
Observed on the 25th day of Kislev on the Hebrew calendar, Hanukkah generally occurs between November and late December on the Gregorian calendar.
Rabbi Ross described the “manifested miracle of the eternal flame” of a cruse lamp, a kind of pre-Christian oil burning lamp used in prayer following a military victory against the Greeks during the Maccabean revolt – a Jewish rebellion against the Seleucid Empire and its influences contrary to hasidic ideals, in 160 B.C.
“It was an instance where only one day’s worth of holy oil lasted the eight days it eventually took to resupply the fuel to the cruse lamp,” said Ross. “So now we light a candle for each day, one the first day, two the second day, three the third day, etcetera.”
When asked about the common ways people celebrate the holiday, Rabbi Ross mentioned two primary foods eaten on the holiday — latkes and sufganiyot, two snacks that are prepared by frying in oil, referencing the significance of the oil used in the eight day flame of the menorah.
“There was one Hannukah year where a friend of mine was doing a party and asked whether I would make 100 latkes,” Rita Blachman, 90, recalled.
Blachman is a Brooklyn-born former corrective reading teacher for the New York City Board of Education who has been living at Atria since 2018. She explained that she split the work with her husband at the time to make the meal. He grated the potatoes while she fried them.
“And we made 100 latkes,” Blachman said. “That always stuck in my mind.”
Another resident and friend of Blachman is 94-year-old Marlene Chazin, a mother of four and former president of ORT America. Originally from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Chazin offered her memories of the holiday.
“Hanukkah is really a minor holiday. It has been blown up because of Christmas,” said Chazin.
She explained that when she was a young girl, gift-giving was not a traditional part of it.
“When I grew up there was no such thing,” Chazin said. “You got your money, you got your latkes, you light your candle every night and that was it.”
New York state has the highest population of Jews in the country and Bronx-based U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres faced heavy backlash from protesters when he sided with Israel in their ongoing war with Palestine. Tensions are high as more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents occurred across the U.S. since October, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
During the “Festival of Lights,” many are happy to embrace the brightness in the gloom.
“It’s a very beautiful holiday,” said Rabbi Ross. “We are in the depth of winter right now. It’s very dark and when you see those candles in our houses, by the eighth day, it’s so lit up.”
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