Running Press puts out tiny “kits” - a toy and a companion text - that make for ideal gifts. The team at Running Press Minis, a division of Hachette Book Group, was gearing up to create the company’s first Hanukkah product in more than two decades. “And so taking a piece of the zeitgeist and attaching it to a story that is meaningful, I think is great.”īerman was recruited to add a story to a toy that lacked one. “I think a lot about what engages learners and how we engage learners,” said Sara Beth Berman, the author of a 32-page miniature book released last month by Hachette Press. And now, for the first time, a professional Jewish educator has given the Hanukkah llama a deeply Jewish backstory, in an effort to endow a kitschy character with substance. In 2020, the trend expanded to include a picture book about a family of llamas celebrating Hanukkah written by a Jewish children’s book author. “And they also have wide backs, so that serves as great storage space for dreidels, hanukkiot.” “Llamas are particularly adorable, and they’re easy to dress up in Hanukkah fashion, whether it’s sweaters or scarves, or kippot,” offered Rabbi Yael Buechler, a designer of Jewish holiday merchandise and a keen observer of the Jewish marketplace, as a reason for the enduring and befuddling mashup. What does a South American animal have to do with a holiday commemorating a Jewish miracle in the Middle East? Is a not-quite rhyme enough to justify “Happy Llamakah” sweaters and socks? Just why are the aisles of TJ Maxx and other stores hawking holiday merchandise filled with Hanukkah llama items, alongside “Oy to the World” dish towels and gnomes decked out in blue and white? ( JTA) - For years, the Hanukkah llama has been a corny cliche that skeptics of the big-box Hanukkah industrial complex love to hate.
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