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For this week’s Please Explain feature, we’ve invited two scholars here to talk about the rich and complex history of Hanukkah, and its cultural impact on today's society. Rabbi Joy Levitt, the Associate Executive Director for Programs at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan and the co-author of A Guide to Everything Jewish in New York, is joined by Alan F. Segal, professor of religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College and Columbia University, to explain how Hanukkah came to be such an important holiday.

» More on the Please Explain series

Music: Soundtrack to Sonatine, music by Joe Hisaishi
A Hanukka Celebration: "To Celebrate a Miracle" by Samuel Adler