The Peoria area has a wide variety of options and groups for Jewish residents to celebrate the holidays. WCBU's Collin Schopp spoke with Jenny Evans, a volunteer for the Jewish Federation of Peoria, about local Jewish organizations, Hanukkah and her own experience as a transplant.
You can find a full calendar of events from the Jewish Federation of Peoria on their website here.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You were also a transplant to Peoria at one point, what was your experience like?
I moved to Peoria all the way back in 2011. And I said, ‘I'm going to stay there for two years.’ And I'll probably just, you know, go back to the Chicago area on the weekends, like, I'm not going to spend much time there, just going to go there for this job, and then move back. And it's now 2022. And I haven't left, and I don't go back every weekend. And I have a husband and a kid. And yeah, the rest is history. And so I came here as a transplant, not knowing really anything about the Peoria area. And I'm really happy I've stuck around.
What’s something you like about Peoria?
I love how laid back everything is. I know this is radio, so you can't see, but I'm wearing a flannel and jeans. And I can wear that anywhere I go. It's so laid back. And it's also a very welcoming community to me. I feel very at home here.
One of the reasons we’re talking today is to learn more about the holidays for Peorians who are Jewish. Would you start by broadly explaining what the Jewish Federation of Peoria is?
Yeah, so the Jewish Federation of Peoria, it's not like a synagogue or a temple. It's nondenominational and they do work locally here in the Peoria area. They do work abroad. They've been helping, not just Jewish Federation of Peoria, but they're part of Jewish Federations of North America, who do a lot of work with Israel, recently with Ukraine, a lot of service work. It's a charitable organization. But my involvement recently has been with the Peoria Young Jewish Professionals. And so we're a group that's sort of come and gone with the amount of people in that demographic, but right now we have a really strong group that's growing. And we have social events. We have Jewish events, volunteer events, so yeah, so Jewish Federations of Peoria. There's a lot of other Jewish organizations, too, and I could mention them if you want, just so people know. If you're a transplant like myself, or you're just someone, a Jewish person, in Peoria who's been around and lurking, just so people know what those groups are. So Bradley University has a Hillel, which is like a Jewish Center for any Bradley students. There's the Peoria Chabad, which is an organization for Orthodox Jews. There's Agudas Achim, which is a conservative Jewish congregation. And Anshai Emeth, which is a reform congregation. That's the one I belong to. And then there's also Peoria Hebrew Day School, which is for students. So there's actually quite a few Jewish organizations here so we're very lucky in that regard.
We’re also talking about the Jewish holiday season and Hanukkah. Has Hanukkah started yet as we’re talking today (Dec. 16)?
Not quite. We're close. So what's really funny is our holiday season actually comes in the fall like the September usually range, because we use the lunar calendar. When we have Rosh Hashanah, which is the New Year, Yom Kippur, the day of repentance, and Sukkot, which is like a harvest holiday. Those are some of the bigger holidays. Hanukkah in the story of Jewish history is relatively minor, but we do celebrate it in the winter time. And so again, because of the lunar calendar, that kind of always changes but this year, it starts this coming Sunday, the 18th. It runs for eight nights. And so this year, it'll start on the 18th. And yeah, usually in the past, there's been a big like community Hanukkah party, but because of COVID, those events have kind of been pared down to like these smaller events. Hopefully next year, we'll bring back the big party, but each of these groups that I mentioned, is going to be having their own kind of holiday celebrations. The young Jewish professionals will be going ax throwing for a Hanukkah party, but there's the other groups will be doing things as well.
Would you mind explaining the significance of the eight nights?
Yeah, so there's actually a few different explanations. There's common sayings about how if you ask two rabbis, you get three opinions. So there's actually a few different explanations of that. But the most common one is that the story of Hanukkah involves, like ancient Greek Syrian time where practicing Judaism was actually outlawed. And so this group the Maccabees were fighting against that. And in this battle, like after they won this battle and then there was this rededication of the Second Temple and that's actually, Hanukkah means rededication. And so this oil that was, this is an opinion, the most popular one is that the oil that was only supposed to last one day for this lantern to light up the temple lasted for eight days. And so we light this menorah. You know, there's eight candles, nine candles, one of them to light the other ones, and so it lasts for eight days. And we also use that oil reference when we eat a bunch of fried food on Hanukkah. We eat potato pancakes, which we call latkes. We fry jelly doughnuts called Sufganiyah. Um, I feel like I'm missing some other fried food, but those are the main ones. And so yeah, so that's what we do. And there's also a Dreidel, a spinning top that we spin that has Hebrew letters on it, that stand for “a great miracle happened there.” And so, Nun, Gimel, Hey and Shin are the letters and so kids like to play it. It's like a little kid gambling game. We play with chocolates and candies and stuff.
Is there any place that’s a good resource for a Jewish person in Peoria to find information about all these different events?
I think Jewish Federation would be a good place to start because they keep a community calendar with all of these different organizations and Jewish Federation of Peoria will be able to kind of lead someone in the right direction. As far as getting to like, they have programs for children. It's called PJ library. That's another national program. They're having a Hanukkah celebration, where they'll do spinning the dreidel and lighting the menorah and reading like Hanukkah books and then I'm sure that Bradley Hillel is doing something and these other organizations will do things too. So, I think Jewish Federation would be a good place to start.
It sounds like Peoria has a pretty good range and diversity of options for Jewish Peorians. Would you say that's true?
Yeah, I think it's actually quite surprising. And I think if that didn't exist, I wouldn't have stayed here for as long as I have.
What's your favorite thing about the Jewish community here in Peoria in general?
Oh my gosh, I love so much about it. I don't even know where to start. I just like that. There's, like we said before, so many different, like, different groups for different things. Like I can go to my temple, if I'm looking for more of a spiritual experience. I could talk to the rabbi. But there's also like this Jewish Federation who's doing charitable things, but also really fun things like Young Professionals. We just went out to dinner the other night just for fun. And so it kind of feels like you have a friend and family group here, which is really special. The Jewish community has been there for me through some pretty tough times and I know that I've been there for others. It just feels like another little family.
If a Jewish person is relocating to central Illinois, and it's important to them to have, you know, a good set of options for them and their faith, would you potentially recommend Peoria as a place for that?
Oh, totally. We're growing. Every day I hear about new people who are moving here. I posted to that Peoria Transplant Facebook group just looking and within that day, there were like four or five people I had never met before who came out of the woodwork. So yeah, we have our own Facebook group: Peoria Jewish Young Professionals and Jewish Federation of Peoria has a Facebook group as well. And so those are good places to check out but yeah, I would definitely recommend it. We also, side note, have a really beautiful Holocaust memorial that Jewish Federation was really an integral part of. And then it's like, displayed at the Peoria Riverfront Museum, and there's like 6 million buttons and then some other amount of million buttons for the people who weren't Jewish who also perished in the Holocaust. So there's not just social stuff, but there's also a pretty rich Jewish culture for people who are interested.
