In much the West, Chanukah's proximity to Christmas and simple, mostly home-based observances have turned it into both one of the more visible holidays on the Jewish calendar, and the holiday whose significance is most widely known by non-Jews: a commemoration of the "miracle of the oil," when a day's worth of purified olive oil miraculously burned in the menorah for eight days during the Temple's repurification in the wake of the Maccabees' revolt against Seleucid Greek authority. Here in Jerusalem, though, where the Temple once stood, Western visitors, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, may be surprised to discover that the festival of lights is a more low-key affair.
Chanukah is celebrated in Jerusalem largely through school vacations, cheerful public candle lightings and the immoderate consumption of delicious filled doughnuts (sufganiyot). But even though Chanukah doesn't inspire the revelry of Purim or the uninhibited party atmosphere of Independence Day here in the Holy City, the thousands of chanukiyot (or menorahs) twinkling in the city's windows, lit by everyone from shopkeeps to politicians, lend a welcome and subtle touch of holiday spirit (the eight-branched chanukiyah represents the Temple's menorah and the eight days of the miracle of the oil – Hebrew speakers avoid calling the chanukiyah a "menorah," the typical term in the Anglophone world, so as not to confuse the symbolic chanukiyah with the much more ritually significant Temple menorah).
