Menorah candles, latkes, dreidels and eight nights of light, gathered as copy-paste Hanukkah emojis for greetings, card messages and festive captions. Tap to copy any glyph on the page.
Hanukkah emoji come down to light and food. ๐ is the centre of it, and the detail most people miss is that the emoji depicts a nine-branched hanukkiah rather than the seven-branched Temple menorah: eight candles for the eight nights, plus the shamash used to light the others. ๐ฏ and ๐ฅ carry the nightly lighting, ๐๐ค the colours the festival picked up in the twentieth century, and โจ๐ the rest. The food is specific and fried, because the miracle being marked is about oil: ๐ฅ for latkes, ๐ฉ for sufganiyot, ๐ง for the frying itself. ๐ฒ stands in for the dreidel there is no emoji for, and ๐ง๐ cover the gelt and small gifts given to children. The festival runs eight nights beginning on the 25th of Kislev.
๐ is officially named Menorah with Nine Branches, and the count matters. A hanukkiah holds eight candles for the eight nights plus a ninth, the shamash, which sits apart and is used to light the others. The seven-branched menorah of the ancient Temple is a different object and a different symbol, closer to a national emblem than a festival one. The emoji arrived in Unicode 8.0 in 2015, which made it one of the later major religious symbols to get a dedicated glyph.
Fried Food, Dreidels And Gelt
The oil in the Temple lamp lasting eight nights is why everything eaten at Hanukkah is fried. ๐ฅ covers latkes, the potato pancakes served with apple sauce or sour cream, and ๐ฉ stands for sufganiyot, the jam-filled doughnuts that dominate in Israel. ๐ฒ is the usual substitute for a dreidel, the four-sided spinning top marked with Hebrew letters, since no dreidel emoji exists. ๐ง and ๐ handle gelt, the chocolate coins given to children, which ๐ช would cover if it were in our set.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Hanukkah?โผ
Hanukkah begins on the 25th of Kislev in the Hebrew calendar and runs eight nights, which places it somewhere between late November and late December. Like all Jewish holidays it starts at sunset the evening before the listed first day.
Why does the menorah emoji have nine branches?โผ
Because it depicts a hanukkiah, the Hanukkah-specific lamp. Eight branches hold one candle for each night, and the ninth holds the shamash, the helper candle used to light the rest. The seven-branched Temple menorah is a separate symbol.
Is there a dreidel emoji?โผ
No, Unicode has not approved one. ๐ฒ is the usual stand-in because it reads as a small game object, and some people use ๐ฏ or ๐งธ instead. A dreidel has been proposed more than once but has never made it through the approval process.
