The eight-day festival of Hanukkah, also called the Festival of Lights, starts Tuesday night.

To commemorate oil burning in a lamp for a miraculous eight days in 165 BC, students from the Schechter School of Long Island and the Hebrew Academy made a variety of latkes at the Garden City Hotel as part of the "First Annual Scholastic Hanukkah Latke Cook-Off."

The two schools each made three types of latkes, which were then judged by a panel. Some flavors included the standard potato latke, a Persian-style latke and an Israeli-style latke.

"If you put the right ingredients into it, you're going to produce a miracle -- the miracle of Hanukkah, the miracle of unity," said Rabbi Anchelle Perl, of Chabad of Mineola.

The contest ended in a tie.