Hanukkah tea towels. Menorah napkins and paper plates. Tie-dye Hanukkah pajama sets. Children’s books, such as "Hanukkah Hippity-Hop" and "Oy, Santa!"

All are items flying off the shelves at the store inside the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

“Our business is really powered by Hanukkah,” said Kristen Kreider, the museum’s managing director of business operations. Year after year, the demand “just keeps climbing” for gifts and home decor, as well as for $150 dreidels and handcrafted $500 glass menorahs.

Upping the ante this year: Hanukkah — the dates of which are determined by the Hebrew calendar — begins on Christmas Day.

“Everyone is accessorizing for Hanukkah in a way that they didn’t before,” said Kreider, who has been selling Judaica in Philadelphia for more than 30 years. Before joining the museum, she owned the high-end Jewish craft store, American Pie, on South Street.

Elsewhere online, consumers can buy an array of 6- to 7-foot-tall Hanukkah inflatables, including Unikkah the Hanukkah Unicorn and Dinokkah the Hanukkah Dinosaur, for about $100 apiece. They are among the most popular Hanukkah items this year at ModernTribe, an online Jewish gift store, said owner Amy Kritzer Becker.

Independent Jewish retailers and Judaica experts said demand for Hanukkah products is higher than ever. The fourth quarter, which always includes Hanukkah, now accounts for more than half of ModernTribe’s annual business, Kritzer Becker said. At the Weitzman Museum Store, those last three months of the year see more than twice as much business as any other period, Kreider said.

In recent years, national chains, such as Target, Kohl’s, and HomeGoods, have also gotten in on the Hanukkah fun, offering a growing selection of products, everything from a set of latke figurines (complete with sour cream and applesauce toppings) to “DJ Dreidel,” a plush bear toy that plays “Hava Nagila.” Even pet stores have expanded into Hanukkah products, with Petco selling “Happy Pawnukkah” toys for Jewish — or “Chewish” — pups.

“It used to be very hard to find Hanukkah inflatables and Hanukkah lights. You just had to get something blue and make your own,” said Lior Zaltzman deputy managing editor of Kveller, a Jewish parenting and pop-culture website.

By contrast, in Kveller’s recent reviews of Hanukkah products, Zaltzman and other writers like Rabbi Yael Buechler, who has a large social-media following, have to select their favorites in an array of categories, including outdoor decor, Hanukkah sweaters, and best items at Target.

In Zaltzman’s opinion, today “there is more of a desire to be celebratory and openly Jewish,” she said.

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people, and Israel’s military response, which has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, there has been a rise in antisemitism across the U.S.

Last year before Hanukkah, which began just two months after the attacks, Buechler said she noticed more of her neighbors and friends being fearful, hesitant to mark their homes as Jewish with elaborate decorations.

This year though, Buechler said, “there has really been such a surge of pride and Jewish identity, and I think more and more families want to celebrate their Judaism and decorate their homes inside and out.”

“It’s been tough to be a Jew lately,” Kritzer Becker said, “and people want to celebrate the joys of being Jewish.”

Why Hanukkah decor has gotten more popular

Retailers said it’s hard to say whether the increased selection of Hanukkah decor over the past decade led to greater consumer demand for the products, or vice versa.

“It’s been super exciting for me as a rabbi to see so much Hanukkah decor,” said Buechler, founder of Midrash Manicures, an online Jewish nail-art and gift shop that specializes in creative, educational products.

Buechler has also tracked trends in the Hanukkah marketplace over the past 100 years and has become a product watchdog. As of this week, she had visited almost 50 stores this season to review their Hanukkah selection, and she receives dozens of messages a day from followers pointing out errors in Hanukkah products.

“As an informal Hanukkah influencer, I can say that the online options really increased in the 2010s,” Buechler said. “About seven years ago, we saw more home decor in national retailers like Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and nowadays you walk into a HomeGoods or Homesense, and the selection is endless.” The inflatables gained popularity about five years ago, she added.

Since Nov. 1, Buechler’s family’s New York apartment has been decked out, with string garlands of blue dreidels and Stars of David hanging, Target’s plush sour-cream and applesauce latkes proudly displayed near her menorah, and the Unikkah and Dinokkah inflatables blown up. The decor delights her elementary-aged children.

It’s a far cry, she said, from the few “very basic” selection of Hanukkah decor she had to choose from as a child.

Her children “often want everything,” Buechler said, “and it’s been really fun to go shopping with them.”

Differing opinions on Hanukkah decor

Not everyone is on board with decorating for Hanukkah.

As Zaltzman noted in a Kveller article last month, “some think it’s a step too far into assimilation” with Christian hegemony.

“I don’t think we’ll do more than the simple menorah. It’s not a major Jewish holiday,” said Maddie Sweitzer, a 29-year-old who lives in South Philadelphia with her fiancé and is celebrating her first Hanukkah since converting. “It’s almost like the commercialization of Hanukkah and just where we’re at in our capitalist society.”

“I don’t feel the need to throw up a big Hanukkah display,” Sweitzer said.

Buechler, meanwhile, said she believes the decorations go hand in hand with Jewish tradition.

“I completely think it’s in line with what we should be doing to publicize the miracle of Hanukkah,” Buechler said.

And unlike Christmas ornaments and Santa figurines that get packed up and stored away each January, some Jewish families never put away their Hanukkah decor.

“A beautiful menorah on the table is going to enhance your home year round,” said Kreider, of the Weitzman Museum Store. “I’ve gone into homes where the seder plate is permanently on display in the dining room. … That’s a nice aspect of Judaica.”

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