Differences between celebrating Chanukkah in Israel versus the United States

When I grew up as a child in the US, I remember that Chanukkah was a big deal. My mom would decorate the entire house for Chanukkah with dreidal lights, Happy Chanukkah banners, and Israeli flags. We would eat latkes with applesauce almost every night made by my Uncle Harold who would come down from Pittsburgh just for the holiday. We would sing songs together and I would play dreidal with him. Uncle Harold would always let me win, so that I would get to eat all of the gelt myself. I remember as a child I used to be jealous of the Christian kids and their santa clause, so my dad created a fictatious charactor called Grandpa Chanukkah that would give eight Chanukkah presents to all of the Jewish kids, one for each night of Chanukkah. He would give them eight times as many presents as the Christian kids to compensate for Jewish children being a minority. I would believe in Grandpa Chanukkah until the fourth grade, when I found out from other kids in Hebrew School that they never received presents from such a magical creature. Although Chanukkah was never as commercialized as Christmas, given the situation in the US, the American Jews made Chanukkah more commercialized than it was any where else in the world. Whole sections of stores contained Chanukkah decorations, Chanukkah cards, etc., and there were even big Chanukkiahs beside Christmas trees in some public buildings. Sometimes, my parents would take me downtown to see the National Chanukkah Menorah Lighting, which took place adjacent to the National Christmas Tree Lighting in Washington, DC. And starting in college, I made an annual tradition out of watching the movie Hebrew Hammer for Chanukkah, which I find to be the most hysterical movie ever. It was loads of fun, celebrating Chanukkah in the US.

Here in Israel, however, Chanukkah is celebrated very differently from the way that it is in the US. Firstly, it is not commercialized like it is in the US. You won't see people giving out Chanukkah cards and decorating their houses for Chanukkah. My Mizrachi family does not even eat latkes, but svinge, a Mizrachi pastry that is made especially for Chanukkah, served with sugar, nuttella, honey, or homemade jam. Sometimes the Mizrachim will eat sufganiyot since they came to Israel and adopted it from the Ashkenazi here, but the whole latkes thing is still not a part of their tradition. In fact, when I made latkes for my Mizrachi husband, he responded by eating it with schoog (red Morrocan hot chilly peppers), not the traditional applesauce. While people still sing some songs for Chanukkah, they usually don't sing as many as in the US. While people still light the Chanukkiah, Mizrachim don't give out presents for Chanukkah, but for Purim. My husband claims that there is a chanukkah menorah lighting in each Israeli city, but I seriously doubt that they make as big of deal out of it as the US Jews make a big deal out of the US National Chanukkah Menorah Lighting. However, Israeli television does broadcast Hebrew Hammer and children do get off school for Chanukkah, even though the universities and the work places don't close down. Indeed, to celebrate Chanukkah in Israel is very different from celebrating Chanukkah in the US.