NEW YORK — It’s a turkey. It’s a menorah. It’s Thanksgivukkah!
An extremely rare convergence this year of Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah has created a frenzy of Talmudic proportions.
The last time it happened was 1888, and the next time may have Jews lighting their candles from spaceships 79,043 years from now, by one calculation.
There’s the commerce: A 9-year-old New York boy invented the “Menurkey” and raised more than $48,000 on Kickstarter for his already-trademarked, Turkey-shaped menorah. Woodstock-inspired T-shirts have a turkey perched on the neck of a guitar and implore “8 Days of Light, Liberty & Latkes.” The creators nabbed the trademark to “Thanksgivukkah.” And let’s not forget the food mash-ups: Pumpkin latkes, apple-cranberry sauce and deep-fried turkey, anyone?
The lunisolar nature of the Jewish calendar makes Hanukkah and other religious observances appear to drift slightly from year to year.
