Why do we eat doughnuts on Chanukah?

11.30pm for the sixth night. The last two days of Chanukah we were just North of the Antarctic circle (around 65 degrees South), and although the sun did set (very late indeed, around 11pm) it never became dark at all, which presented us with the problem of when to light the Chanukah candles which are supposed to be lit after dark. After some thought I decided that the right time had to be a little after local midnight, since after that time it can only get lighter. This turned out to be around 1.30am so at that hour on the 1 January, 2006, which happened to be a Shabbat, we left the New Year party and went back to our cabin to make Havdalah and to light the candles for the seventh night of Chanukah. The only time in my life when I have lit Chanukah candles on what is the following day in the secular calendar. That trip was full of wonders, and Pirsumei Nisa to a group of penguins was one of them.

Barry Landy In some ways this is a trick question. My own personal response would be “but we don't” and indeed my parents and grandparents had never met that custom. For them the extra food item on Chanukah was Latkes (potato pancakes). For that the same question would apply "why Latkes?" The usual response would be "because of the miracle of the oil". That however raises lots of secondary questions, but the primary one is whether there was such a miracle at all.

Our primary religious source for Chanukah is a strange passage in the Talmud, in Shabbat (21b), which starts “Mai Chanukah?”, or “what is Chanukah?” A very strange question to ask in the Talmud in an environment in which Chanukah was well known. Indeed the immediately prior passage on the same page discusses the order in which the candles are to be lit. Page 16

The other major source is the Book of Maccabees. This is not in the bible and it appears to have been originally written in Greek. These two sources provide an interesting contrast. The Book of Maccabees describes the history in a lot of detail, focusing primarily on the battles against the Seleucids, and the role of the family of the Hasmoneans. In these four books there is no mention of any “miracle of the oil”. By contrast the Talmud passage is very short and focuses primarily on the miracle of the oil and glosses over the contribution of the Hasmonean family. We can deduce that, in view of the subsequent conflict between the Rabbis and the Hasmoneans, who were Cohanim but had usurped the role of High Priest and also taken over the throne, the Rabbis wanted to downplay the military successes of the Hasmoneans. So it would seem that the Talmud passage introduces the "miracle of the oil" as a counterweight to the glorification of military might. One might almost wonder if the whole story had been invented for that purpose, given that the Book of Maccabees does not mention it. Back to the original question! Clearly latkes were not possible before the 16th century as Europe did not have potatoes. Doughnuts for Chanukah were not heard of in England before the late 20th Century, having made it to Israel from the USA (so perhaps I should write "donuts"?) and from Israel back to UK. So for a “long established tradition” it is a remarkably recent arrival. The excellent book “otzar dinim u-minhagim”, published in 1917, lists all the minhagim for the important days of the year. However it doesn’t list latkes or doughnuts as customary food to eat on Chanukah (though it lists games, including the dreidel). It does though record a custom that seems to have completely vanished, which is to eat dairy products, especially milk and cheese, to commemorate the victory over Sisera and the story of Yael. The standard story of course is that because of the “miracle of the oil” we should have oily food on Chanukah; I wonder how far back that really goes?

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