What are the symbols of Hanukkah?

Answer 1

The main symbol of the Feast of Hanukkah (literally, Feast of 'Dedication' but often popularly called the "Feast of LIGHTS") is an eight-branched menorah ("lamp"), one additional candle of which is added for each day of this eight-day feast.

http://thumb.shutterstock.com/photos2/display_pic_with_logo/1333/1333,1129594485,3.jpg

The book of 2 Maccabees, one of the two earliest records (along with 1 Maccabees, which is a more careful history) of the events behind Hanukkah, attributes the length of the feast and the importance of the LIGHTS to the Maccabees treating it like a delayed (feast of) Tabernacles (Hebrew "Sukkoth"), the great fall harvest feast of Israel. (The importance of lights to Tabernacles is rooted in the feast's role as a celebration of God's leading Israel through the desert, specifically as symbols of the pillar of cloud and fire that went before them.)

The other explanation --the popular one-- is found in the Talmud, is that there was only enough oil for one day, but miraculously it lasted for eight days. Jews often speak about "the miracle of the oil")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah#The_story

A popular secondary symbol connected with Hanukkah is the dreidl (Yiddish [a Jewish dialect of German] for "top") of medieval Europe, used to play a game during Hanukkah. Each side of the top has a Hebrew letter. The letters have a two-fold meaning -- each begins a Yiddish (German) word that instructs the players what to do; taken together they also form the first four words of a Hebrew saying, "(A) great miracle happened there [or 'here' if played in Israel]."
http://www.jabad.org.ar/imagenes/2dreidl_20011207.jpg
http://www.rjca.org/dreidl.html
http://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article.asp?AID=255909


(Also associated with this feast are Hanukkah gelt [real coins or ones made of chocoloate] and potato pancakes called "latkas". But these are not central "symbols" of the feast.)


http://people.howstuffworks.com/hanukkah2.htm