Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About Hanukkah
As the Jewish Festival of Lights begins December 20, TIME brings you a few things you might not know about the holiday
The gift of small Jewish coins first emerged as a Hanukkah tradition during the Middle Ages, when gelt (a Yiddish word for money) was given to teachers. The practice gradually extended to children as well, who were expected to donate some of it to charity. (Gelt also became the reward for winning dreidel games.) In 1958 Israel's national bank began minting commemorative coins to use as gelt, highlighting a different regional Jewish community each year (in honor of America's bicentennial in 1976, the coins featured a colonial American menorah). Some gelt is also distributed in the form of chocolate, believed to be one of the origins of the popular tinfoil-wrapped chocolate coins.
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