We’re wishing our Jewish staff and local Jewish community a happy Chanukah, as the ‘festival of lights’ gets underway this evening.

Chanukah recognises the Maccabees’ defeat of the Greeks and the reclaiming of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The Maccabeans lit the menorah (a traditional candelabra) in the temple and even though there was only enough oil for one day, miraculously it kept burning for eight days.

Andrew Deaner, a consultant cardiologist and the site medical director at King George Hospital, shares his fond memories of celebrating it when he was growing up in the area in the 1970s.

“I used to go to the synagogue in Beehive Lane, Gants Hill. And we were a really big community in those days – almost every other house was Jewish and everyone got along so well and even our friends who weren’t Jewish used to know so much about it!

“We’d sing traditional songs and play Dreidel, which is a small spinning top inscribed with the words ‘a great miracle happened there’ in Hebrew on it. You spin it and the winner of each round would get sweets or nuts.”

To commemorate the oil lasting for eight days, food fried in oil is typically eaten during the festival including fried potato cakes known as latkes and sufganya, a type of doughnut.

“As a cardiologist, I definitely shouldn’t condone the oily foods!” Andrew joked. “But the latkes, like most fried potato dishes, are very tasty and delicious and you can either have them savoury or some people dip them in sugar. And we all take great pleasure in making those.

“People used to give something called Chanukah gelt, a small amount of money, to the kids each day. But because it happens at the same time as Christmas, people now tend to give a small gift each day instead.

“We tend to go and see different family each night and at the weekend, we’ll have a bigger party – it’s a lovely festival.”