All About the Blue and White Holiday: Hanukkah! Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Christmas is often associated with colors such as red and green, while Hanukkah is usually identified by blue and white. Which of these options does NOT offer a plausible explanation of why these two colors are used?

Answer: Red and green were already taken, so the Jews used Plan B

Actually, Hanukkah dates back from Macedon and the ancient Greeks, long before Christ was born! While there is no official explanation of why blue and white usually represent Hanukkah and the Jewish religion in general, there are many accepted reasons. One comes from a 1864 poem by Ludwig August Frankl called "The Colors of Judah", where he described white as "the radiance of the priesthood" and blue as "the splendors of the firmament".

Blue and white are also the colors in tallits, Jewish clothing used while praying inside the synagogue, which gave origin to the Israeli flag, designed in 1891.

Not only blue and white are related to the holiday, since other colors like gold and silver are also associated to Hanukkah.

2. The best part of Jewish holidays is often the food! To celebrate the "miracle of oil", fried potato pancakes are eaten in Hanukkah. What are these pancakes called?

Answer: Latkes

Latkes, also known as levivot, are fried potato pancakes, often served with cheese or sour cream and flavored with onion or garlic. These are made to celebrate how very little oil was enough to light a candelabrum for eight days!

Matzah and charoset are usually eaten in Passover, when Jews celebrate how they escaped from slavery in Egypt.

3. A popular song about Hanukkah's favorite toy, the dreidel, goes: "I have a little dreidel, I made it out of ______" Which word completes the phrase?

Answer: Clay

The English version of "I Have a Little Dreidel" was composed by Samuel E. Goldfarb, and the lyrics were written by Samuel S. Grossman. The song is basically about a kid creating a dreidel and then playing with it. The first and most famous lyrics go: "I have a little dreidel, I made it out of clay, and when it's dry and ready, then dreidel I shall play".

The dreidel is a spinning top that has four Hebrew letters, one on each side of the top. The letters usually form the phrase "a great miracle happened there" or "a great miracle happened here", in Israel.

4. Known as "sufganiyot", these delicious jelly doughnuts have become a Hanukkah tradition. By which of the following are sufganiyot known within the Yiddish?

Answer: Ponchkes

Sufganiyot are deep-fried doughnuts filled with jelly. There are several variations of fillings, like chocolate and vanilla. A sufganiyah is almost identical to the Yiddish "ponchke", as both are holeless fried doughnuts with a jelly filling and covered by sugar.

These pastries are very similar to the Berliner, a German pastry with a marmalade filling.

5. Even though modern gift-giving is a rather "Christmassy" tradition that has been adopted in other celebrations like Hannukah, the act of giving comes from a long time ago, since children were given "gelt" (money) in each of the nights of Hanukkah. Why was this?

Answer: To teach children about charity

It is common to hear that children receive gifts for each night of Hanukkah. However, originally, children didn't get gifts per se, but gelt, which is the Yiddish word for "money". Kids were supposed to give some of that money to poor people that couldn't afford Hanukkah candles. With that money, children would help make those people happy and learn about the value of charity.

6. One of the most related items to Hanukkah are candles, since on each night of the holiday, one is lit to remember the miracle of oil that happened many years ago. Because of this, Hanukkah is often known as the festival of what?

Answer: Lights

Hanukkah is a celebration of victory, marking the occasion when the Jews avoided a Greek invasion after the destruction of the temple. The story tells that with a very little amount of oil, they managed to keep the menorah lighted for days, making Hanukkah a celebration of lights.

7. Hanukkah is usually related to Christmas because of the proximity of both holidays. However, while Christmas has a specific date in the Gregorian calendar, Hanukkah varies each year. In the Jewish calendar, though, the date never varies, as Hanukkah always starts on the 25th of which month?

Answer: Kislev

The Jewish or Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar, since months are based on the lunar calendar. However, years are based on the solar calendar, making the Hebrew calendar a lunisolar one. There are also 12 months in the calendar, the first being Nissan, which normally starts between March and April.

The 25th of Kislev marks the beginning of Hanukkah, holiday that also falls in the month of Tevet. Usually, their equivalent to the Gregorian calendar is November and December, explaining why Hanukkah is always connected to Christmas.

8. When children play with the dreidel in Hanukkah, they also gamble! Of course, they don't do this with real money, but with gelt made of what?

Answer: Chocolate

Usually wrapped in golden or silver foil, chocolate gelt in the shape of coins is used by children when playing with the dreidel. The game ends when a player collects all of the chocolate gelt, and then is able to eat it!

9. The holiday of Hanukkah lasts for eight days, and a candle is lit for every day. This means that in the second night, you would not only light one candle, but two. In the last night of the holiday, how many candles will be burning in the menorah?

Answer: Nine

Hanukkah lasts for eight days, since many years ago, a very little amount of oil kept the temple candelabrum burning for eight days. The chanukiah has nine arms, one for each candle and an extra one in the middle for the Shamash, which is the candle used to light the others.

The menorah is a similar candelabrum, but it has seven arms instead of nine.

10. Hanukkah celebrates the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, after the latter destroyed the Holy Temple. Based on the efforts of the Jews to re-build the temple, which word is generally given as the meaning of "hanukkah"?

Answer: Dedication

Although the exact meaning of the word is unknown, "hanukkah" usually translates from Hebrew to "dedication" or "induction", as the Maccabees had to re-build the entire Holy Temple after the Greeks destroyed it.

An alternative meaning of the word comes from "Chanu" (rest) and "kah" (25), which is a reference to how the Maccabees rested after defeating the Greek on the 25th of Kislev.

Source: Author Lpez

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor stedman before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Hanukkah is a well-known Jewish holiday, often celebrated in December. How much do you know about this holiday? Good luck!

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