From its very inception, the Jewish National Movement Hibbat Zion turned to the collective past to advance its goals in the present. Their scholars sought to introduce national historical protagonists instead of the Hasskala’s pantheon of historical characters, to vividly illuminate periods of historical “Golden Ages” suited to the national ideology, to elevate the national ethos, and teach the lesson of historical history – that Hibbat Zion is the solution to the plight of Jews and Judaism.
One of their activities was to reinterpret Jewish holidays and festivals, especially those that did not take a central place in the Jewish calendar, such as Tu B’Av, Lag Ba’omer, Hanukka, and Tu B’ Shvat. They sought to transform the historical memory of these holidays, from a religious memory to a national memory, through the matching of historical military victories and pioneering projects in the Land of Israel, in the present, for these dates. As a result, there was a struggle over the historical memory of these holidays, which has not actually ended to this day, although in some Jewish circles a synthesis was made in the perception of the memory of these holidays. In the proposed lecture I would like to examine this phenomenon and its implications for today. 

History is what happened. Memory is what remains, and what handed down to future generations.
Many times different companies and different stakeholders navigate the memory to the place they want.
We know what happened at the Maccabian period from the historical various sources from the period and after. On the other hand, the educational messages of the Hanukkah (=The holiday that remarks the Maccabian victories) have undergone major changes over the years: from the exile period, through the 19th century, to our days.
In the first part of the lecture, we will quickly review the forms of Hanukkah celebrations in Jewish history. In the second part, we will compare three Jewish education systems: the secular, the religious and the ultra-Orthodox, by watching clips from three Hanukkah parties. We will compare the setting of the parties, their design, and the overt and hidden messages found in them.
The conclusion is that history is exactly the same history, but memory is completely different: it is very dependent on the messages, beliefs and education that the older generations wants to instill in the next generations. 

This paper revolves around Jewish-Kurdish heritage, which is analyzed with help of a postcolonial approach to trauma and memory. More specifically, it develops an analysis of "Half dream…", a research-based art installation by the Jewish-Kurdish artist Esther Cohen and her parents, exhibited in the Bialik House Museum in Tel Aviv. In this exhibition, Cohen explores the heritage of her mother, who is a Yemenite Jew, and of her father, who belongs to Nash Didan. Literally meaning "our people", Nash Didan is a Kurdish-Jewish community of Aramaic speakers.
            Based on her father's memories of Aramaic, Cohen's art installation consists of drawings of words that start with a letter in Aramaic, and that include Hebrew translations. A returning element in the artwork is formed by an amulet that symbolizes a source of protection in patriarchal societies. Presented as an alphabet book, the installation is dedicated to the vanishing language of Aramaic, and can be understood as a daughter's attempt to keep (her) Aramaic heritage alive. "Half Dream…" also foregrounds forms of exclusion and marginalization: the Mizrakhi identity (Jews with a Middle Eastern background) have, for a long time, been neglected by a national Israeli discourse that produces ideas about what it means to belong. Furthermore, the history of Yemenite women, their traditions and their rituals, is almost invisible in today's Israeli society. The art installation, my paper asserts, "talks back" to this society in a subversive and critical manner.
To develop this interpretation, and to grasp the multilayered meaning of "Half Dream…", I coin the notion of "Yade Mirad" in my paper. This is a Kurdish word that loosely translates as a longing for someone else's memory. With help of a close reading of "Half Dream…", I distinguish this concept from the notion of intergenerational memory: "Yade Mirad" does not concern an organic passing on of memories, but sheds light on the agency of the remembering subject, and underscores the political and moral implications of processes of remembering. Especially in the contexts of (forced) migration and displacement, in which people often long for and "remember" a country that they have never visited, the notion is presented as driven by the aim to do justice to the political components of memory, and to illustrate how memories can be re-appropriated and situated within an intersectional and trans-colonial approach to memory cultures.