The Chanukah challenge for young Jews

(JNS) — Chanukah’s popularity with American Jews was largely the result of a futile though determined effort to compete with Christmas. While enjoying freedom, prosperity and influence that was unprecedented in the history of the Diaspora, American Jews needed a holiday that would allow them to play a part in the annual December festivities without abandoning their identity altogether.

That is why Chanukah has become far more important to American Jews that it was to their ancestors in Europe and elsewhere, who regarded it as a minor winter festival. That also explains why it became a blue-tin...