A Chanukah memory

By Gavriel Siman-Tov
Community shaliach

The donut holiday, or should I call it by the Hebrew name — sufganiyot. Chanukah is the holiday of deep frying, of the menorah and the miracle. 

This holiday is the first one in the Jewish calendar after a long break, and I might be wrong, but I want to say it’s every Israeli kid’s favorite holiday. At this point you must think, well, of course, because of all the gifts they get. But let me tell you this, as far as I know and experience, usually we will get one gift for Chanukah or none at all. This is not really a tradition, at least not where I grew up. 

You might ask then why it’s the favorite holiday? Well, because of those sufganiyot

And let me tell you, the sufganiyot nowadays are nothing like they used to be. It became more of a showoff to create those beautiful sufganiyot. Don’t get me wrong, they are looking amazing, but now they have all of those different flavors, and I miss the original one. I miss walking down the street with my dad to the guy with his deep fryer and buying this hot and fresh sufganiyah made on the spot just for you. 

Every year during Chanukah, you will see those sufganiyot everywhere, and in school or kindergarten and even any other after school program, they will mention Chanukah and bring sufganiyot for the kids. Well, as kids you know what you need to do — you need to get more than one because they are so good, and at that point of life you don’t care how fattening those things are. As a kid, this was my goal:  to get two sufganiyot, and I must say I did a good job most of the time. (Take a look at the photo attached.) The other goal you had in mind as a kid was not to get the jelly on your shirt. Well, at this goal, I wasn’t so good. I think pretty much year after year growing up I was coming home after eating a sufganiyah with this weird stain on my shirt that was just jelly that I smudged all over trying to cover it up so my mom wouldn’t know. 

This is just one small memory that Chanukah always bring for me. It is the beginning of winter, my second winter here, and I can’t believe how fast time flies by. So, get a sufganiyah, one in each hand, and enjoy the moment. Those are the little things that you will end up remembering forever.