Sunday, January 04, 2009

Multi-faith Chanukah... with the Nuns!

We have a close family friend who is a Nun here in London, and this year for one of the nights of Chanukah, my Mom made tons of amazing food and we brought it to the Nuns for an amazing multi-faith dinner with the Nuns!! Father Murray, who is completing his Ph.D. on Jewish-Catholic relations, called our evening a fantastic "Jewish-Catholic Hanukkah Celebration", and said that our interest in sharing our culture (and in turn, learning about theirs), "reaffirmed the importance of the kinds of interreligious dialogue and education" that he is so deeply involved in. Amazing!!

It was a very unique and interesting experience for both the Jutans, the Nuns and Father Murray, I think! It was a great opportunity to share our culture and traditions, and to learn about theirs in return.

Father Murray wrote a great article about the evening, so I will leave that for another post as his descriptions of the dreidel games and food are excellent. Here are some photos from our evening of cultural enlightenment!


Lighting the Menorah


Lighting the iMenorah :)


Me pouring the kiddish wine, and describing it's significance


Dad talking about the challah


We're ready for dinner!


Me describing the iMenorah, and how it is a modernized approximation of an ancient tradition


Teaching the dreidel game


Come on... "Gimmel!"


More driedel game


Everyone enjoying the chocolate money, or "gelt"

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