Ben Preiss
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Hanukah celebrates a military victory (of the 165 BCE Jewish revolt against the Seleucid monarchy), the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem (Hanukah means dedication), and the miracle of one days supply of the Temple’s lamp oil lasting eight days. Because of the latter the festival lasts eight days and we light a Hanukia (a Hanuka menorah). We also eat foods cooked in oil like doughnuts (sufganiot) and potato pancakes (latkes). We also play with the dreidel (sivivon in Hebrew), like a square top with four Hebrew letters on it used to play a simple gambling game. On Thursday night University of Michigan students are going for a world dreidel spinning record by spinning 1,000 simultaneously. Those Michiganers!  The eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah returns at sundown tonight.
What better reason to gather people seeking glory for the University of Michigan?
On Thursday night, a group of students will try to break a whimsical world record: most dreidels spinning at once. Organizers will supply all comers with a dreidel -- a traditional Hanukkah toy.
To smash the existing record of 716 claimed by Indiana University, the U-M students want 1,000 people each spinning a dreidel -- or 500 spinning two, if that's what it takes -- said Melissa Morof, 20, a junior from Farmington Hills.
"They'll spin one and then quickly spin another," said Morof, in charge of the event for U-M's chapter of Hillel -- a campus group for 6,000 Jewish students. As of Monday, about 350 people had registered on www.umspins.comthrough , she said.
"You definitely do not have to be Jewish," she added. "Our Hillel members will be checking people in and teaching them how to do this -- dreidel spinning 101."
(en.wikipedia.org)References: freep, en.wikipedia.org Filed In: |
