The Chanukah Story for Kids, from G - Dcast

I was the dreidel spinning champion of the universe. Of course, we didn't call it "dreidel" back then. No one in Modi’in could beat me. My spinny little toy landed on gimel every time. I didn’t think anyone could touch my game Until the Greeks showed up. Nobody knew they were coming. At first I thought the Greeks were just after me but soon it was clear They were out to take over the whole city! The whole country! We were cool with them doing their things But they wanted us to change, and fit in. So they started destroying everything that was different. The Greeks’ rules didn’t sound so harsh Forget about worshiping only one God Don’t do anything Jewish But it was pretty scary. Anyone caught praying could get beaten. Wearing something Jewish? You might get thrown into jail. You could disappear forever just because you refused to eat pork And the weirdest part? Some of our neighbors went along with it! They started dressing like the Greeks And playing Greek sports and worshipping idols and hanging out at wrestling matches Most people went along with the new rules even though they weren't happy about it A few people did exactly what they did before only, they did it in secret And then there were the people who wanted to fight. As for me, there was too much drama going on. I just wanted to play dreidel. But we couldn’t even do that in peace. Every time I sat down, the Greeks would hassle me. They wanted to know if it was some sort of secret Jewish ritual or magic way to talk to God or mystical Kung-Jew! Of course, it wasn’t any of that. At least, at first it wasn’t The Greeks would go on house raids searching for Torahs, or Shabbat candles or other stuff they didn’t like So here was our decoy scheme we would wait outside and play games And when the Greek soldiers came by we just Took...Our...Time explaining the rules If it lands on gimel, you get all the coins If it’s hay, you get half. If it lands on nun, you get nothing, And if it lands on shin, you have to put one in. and everyone inside would hear us stalling so they had time to hide everything Now that’s mystical kung Jew! The Greek armies spread throughout the country. They reached the Temple in Jerusalem which they trashed, of course In secret, we studied, and we trained. Even though it seemed like everyone thought the Greeks were the coolest thing since sliced latkes only a few people actually thought that Most of us were faking. Some of us were hiding. And when we were ready? We stopped hiding. A war was fought and lots of people died. And despite the odds, miraculously, we actually won. We took back our towns and our country and our way of life. We hitched up to Jerusalem, to the Temple. It was wrecked. Our holy Temple, it was completely polluted and trashed. But we all helped clean it up. It looked pretty good again, until somebody pointed out – the Menorah! It wasn’t lit anymore. This lamp was supposed to burn 24/7. Making the oil took a long time and it had to be super-pure 200% Holy Temple-certified olive oil and the whole supply was wrecked Somehow – I’m not saying that I did it, but I’m not saying that I didn’t we found one jar that wasn’t broken And that wasn’t even the biggest miracle! Cool, sure, we found a jar of oil. But those jars usually only lasted for a day And this one? It burned for 8 days and nights! That was long enough that we had time to brew up a whole new batch to keep the fire burning forever throughout hundreds of years, thousands of prayers in the Temple and about a mazillion dreidel rolls Make that a mazillion and one