The English side from the Birkhas Hamazon A. Alexander's 1770 siddur סדר התפלה לפאר ותהלה:
Candlemas? That's quaint. In a way I wish that's the way the Jewish-English language went. If Passover, why not Candlemas?
There's more in the post.
Here's some Chanukah news from 1788 (The New lady's magazine, or, Polite and entertaining companion for the Fair Sex). So you get a piece about Chanukah and steaming a cow's buttock in the Home News for December 31:
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"Candlemas" is nice, but some things don't fit well. First of all, "mass" is too much of a stretch even for a Jewish "service", and more so for an eight-day holiday. Then, the term exists in English for something else.
ReplyDeleteFunnily, German "Weihnachten" would be a better match, "dedication nights" or "period" as in English "fortnight" (though the first part "weih-" originally was probably of some other origin than "weihen" = dedicate.)