WORLD RELIGIONS

Detailed explanation-1: -Hanukkah commemorates the military victory of the ancient Jews, led by Judah Maccabee, over the army of the Greek-Syrians who had denied them religious freedom.

Detailed explanation-2: -Based on the Greco-Roman model of celebrating a military triumph, Hanukkah was instituted in 164 B.C. to celebrate the victory of the Maccabees, a ragtag army of Jews, against the much more powerful army of King Antiochus IV of Syria.

Detailed explanation-3: -Jews celebrate Hanukkah as an eight-day holiday that commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple after the Jewish people reclaimed it from the Syrian-Greeks in the second century BCE. While they expected a small amount of oil to light the temple only briefly, it miraculously burned for a full eight nights.