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Hanukkah Word Search See how many words you can find in the puzzle!

X C R S N F N H J Q D B A H S H A E L U T R U A R C P Q E F A N D E N H D E E N P W K B S Y D E A Y A C I I L U T M E Y I L D R H E D O E G A K E D D K E I S V E H S I L H B K L F U S C I L S A I H T A T T A M N G A V W U F C B C N I H S H A I T H C X Y D C B R A U P A H M I E S C H A N U K A H A H T E O W Y A M H A R O N E M S M L N E O P M T E M P L E O G M N P Y X O J A I E T C L F N E J F P E Z T C H M S X Y I K I G A S O I N H W S Q E R W G

The words in the puzzle are: ANTIOCHUS JUDAH APPLESAUCE LATKES CANDLES MACCABEES CHANUKAH MATTATHIAS DREIDEL MENORAH EIGHT NUN GIMEL PEY HANUKIYAH REDEDICATION HANUKKAH SHAMASH HEY SHIN ISRAEL TEMPLE ARE YOU CURIOUS WHAT THESE WORDS ARE ALL ABOUT? READ THE BRIEF SUMMARY ON THE NEXT PAGE . THE WORDS ARE IN BOLD .

TEXT TO ACCOMPANY HANUKKAH WORD SEARCH

HANUKKAH (some people spell it CHANUKAH ) is a holiday celebrated by Jews around the world. The holiday lasts EIGHT days.

There are lots of fun ways to celebrate. Jews light a MENORAH (also called a HANUKIYAH ), which has nine CANDLES – one for each night plus the SHAMASH (the helper candle that is used to light the other candles).

On Hanukkah, we eat LATKES (potato pancakes). Some people like them plain, some like them with sour cream, and some like them with APPLESAUCE .

A fun game to play during Hanukkah is DREIDEL . A dreidel is a spinning top. It has four Hebrew letters on it – NUN , GIMEL , HEY , SHIN . The letters stand for the Hebrew words “Nes Gadol Haya Sham” – “a great miracle happened there.”

In ISRAEL , a dreidel doesn’t have a letter shin. Instead it has a pey to stand for the word “poh.” This is because in Israel the letters on the dreidel stand for “a great miracle happened here ” – not there .

The miracle refers to a story about there being a miracle because a teeny-tiny bit of oil lasted eight days. But, in an earlier story, the plot focuses on a military struggle.

The story takes place around the year 166 BCE (about 2,174 years ago). The Jews in Israel (also called Judea) were controlled by the King of Syria named ANTIOCHUS . Under his rule, Jews were not allowed to live Jewish lives and their TEMPLE was destroyed. Many Jews were killed during this time.

MATTATHIAS and his five sons were the Jews who led the fight against Antiochus. These Jews were called MACCABEES . One of Mattathias’ sons, JUDAH , became the next leader after his father. Eventually, because they fought back, the Temple was given back to the Jews. Hanukkah means REDEDICATION because the Temple was rededicated.