Thursday, November 21, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
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Tel Aviv, November 21 - An audit of spiraling military expenditures amid the current war has determined that the quickest, most effective avenue for cutting costs involves switching suppliers for the annual Hanukkah refreshments, and refraining from purchase of those products from a chain whose elegant holiday pastries make even the wealthy balk at the prices.
The authors of the study hope that their findings and recommendations will have an impact in time for this year's festivities: Hanukkah begins on the twenty-fifth of the Jewish month of Kislev, coinciding in 2024 with Wednesday night, December 25 - about a month from now. If Ministry of Defense and IDF staff can be prevailed upon to order donuts from sources other than Roladin, the authors write, then savings can amount to more than two billion shekels - about 530 million US dollars.
Defense Ministry spending could fall further, despite the mounting expenses of the October 7 war, already in its second year, if Hanukkah donuts expenditures disappear entirely - though the team of auditors doubt the feasibility of such a cut, which they worry could spark mutiny. However, the tantalizing possibilities of expanding such an austerity policy to other government entities has economists, government accountants, and civic watchdog groups thinking that the entire national budget could shrink by up to seventeen billion shekels per annum by forgoing Roladin Hanukkah donuts.
Jewish celebrations of Hanukkah have long featured the consumption of food fried in oil, a custom documented as far back as the High Middle Ages. The practice commemorates the Talmud's narrative of the festival's origins, when the Hasmoneans who liberated the Temple from Seleucid occupation in the second century BCE found only one undefiled flask of oil to light the candelabra as mandated in the books of Exodus and Numbers, a quantity sufficient for only one lighting. But it lasted a full eight nights, until new oil could be produced and procured. Earlier sources cite other reasons for the eight-day observance, but the story of the oil miracle fired the popular and gustatory imagination in more lasting ways.
Roladin, a cafe-style bakery and patisserie, has locations in every major Israeli city and town. Their year-round fare compares in price to other establishments of similar target markets. For Hanukkah, the chain has for years advertised its stylized, complex, and artistic donuts for Hanukkah - with a commensurate rise in the price of each one as the designs became more and more elaborate.
Market observers expect this year's Roladin offerings to include some new, even more expensive feature, such as pieces of the True Cross.
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