Now it can be told…

This year the first day of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving fall on the same day – a very rare occurrence that led to my first combination Hanukkah/Thanksgiving cartoon.

It is little known, but this coincidence of dates also happened on the first Thanksgiving, in 1621. And even less known is that not all those people in solemn clothes were Puritans. Scenes from the real first Thanksgiving/Hanukkah are illustrated here.

Happy Thanksgiving to my United States readers, Happy Hanukkah to all!

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

DECODER
Schmaltz – Yiddish for rendered chicken fat, a common ingredient in many Eastern European Jewish dishes

Gimmel is a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Dredels, the Hanukkah spinning top, have a Hebrew letter on each of the four sides. The four letters form the acronym, in Hebrew, for “a great miracle happened here”. You spin the dredel and the letter that is facing up when it stops determines whether you win or lose.