As families around Malta hung tinsel and put presents under the tree on Christmas Eve, a different celebration was unfolding in a number of homes.
Hanukkah, one of the most important celebrations in the Jewish calendar, began this year at sundown on December 24, the first time in nearly 40 years it has coincided with Christian festivities.
The eight-day festival follows the lunar calendar, and so can take place anywhere between late November and December.
“Most of our celebrations take place within the family,” Mushka Segal, a member of the local Chabad Jewish community, told the Times of Malta.
“Every day we light a branch of the menorah [a candelabrum with nine branches]. Every day we add light, symbolising the idea that every day we try to add more good to the world.”
The message is about the freedom to live your own culture and faith without fear
Though there is generally little knowledge of Hanukkah in Malta, the celebration bears some comparison to Christmas, both religious feasts taking place in midwinter and focusing on miracles and light.
The origin of the two, of course, is radically different: Hanukkah celebrates an uprising by a small group of Jewish rebels, known as the Maccabees, against religious tyranny in the second century BC.
“The message is about the freedom to live your own culture and faith without fear, or the need to hide or change,” Ms Segal said. “It’s a universal message that applies to every religion, especially today.”
Celebrating Hanukkah at the same time as Christmas in a predominantly Christian country has highlighted some differences, according to Ms Segal: more people have time off work, but fewer outside the Jewish community join in Hanukkah celebrations, tied up as they are with their own festivities.
But ultimately, she said, the two celebrations coinciding just shows how possible it is for people to observe different religions without conflict.
“We are especially honoured to celebrate in Malta: we have always been welcomed here, and it has been very good to see the President working to create space for all religions,” she said.
And while Christmas celebrations will continue to dominate the public sphere in the week ahead, a public menorah has for some days been drawing attention at City Gate in Valletta, and the Jewish community will hold a public celebration in the capital on Thursday, to which it has invited people of all nationalities and religions.
What is Hanukkah?
Hanukkah (also spelled “Chanukah”) is the eight-day Jewish wintertime ‘festival of lights’, celebrated with a nightly lighting of the menorah candles, special prayers and foods.
It commemorates the retaking of the Temple of Jerusalem from the ruling Seleucid (Greek-Syrian) Empire, which tried to stamp out the Jewish faith, in the second century BC.
According to tradition, when the Jewish rebels went to light the temple’s menorah, they found only enough sanctified ritual oil to burn for one day. But when they lit the menorah, the one-day supply of oil miraculously lasted for eight days, long enough for new oil to be prepared.