2023: The Meaning of Chanukah
During Hamas’ heinous attack on Israel October 7, 2023, I was in South Korea attending a former roommate’s wedding. It was a difficult time for me dealing with the worst incidence of antisemitism since the Holocaust. More than 1200 fellow Jews, mostly civilians living in southern Israel, were slaughtered like sheep. Young people attending a concert were shot dead. It was a horrific massacre where babies and even Holocaust survivors were killed. They also kidnapped 240 innocents including young children, women, and the elderly. On that horrible day I read article after article showing the inhumane devastation. Babies that weren’t slaughtered were placed in birdcages where they were kept in Gaza as trophies of the Hamas conquest.
I made it a point to email my family in Tel Aviv to make sure they were okay. Which they weren’t. They were all in shock living from day-to-day praying the insanity would soon end.
Two months later, the Gaza War is still raging as the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is weeding out the Hamas terrorist presence in Gaza. This is difficult because that group of cowards uses its Palestinian population as a shield—it hides under hospitals, schools, and other public institutions. When the IDF strikes a military target, it also bombs a place where many civilians live and work. Consequently, world public opinion has been critical of Israel and the Jewish people.
The Anti-Defamation League, a non-governmental advocacy group specializing in civil rights law combating antisemitism and extremism, has noted a 388 percent increase of harassment, vandalism, and assault on American Jews. Since the October evil attack, the Anti-Defamation League has reported more than 200 anti-semitic incidents in the United States since the massacre.
Hanukah is the festival of lights where over eight nights a candle is lit to commemorate a miracle that occurred more than two thousand years ago. In 164 BCE, our Temple in Jerusalem was seized by Syrian-Greek soldiers and dedicated it to the Greek god, Zeus. Soon after, Antiochus, their emperor, made the observance of Judaism punishable by death and Jews were ordered to worship Greek gods. Mattathias, a rabbi, and his sons, which included Judas Maccabeus, organized a resistance refusing to cooperate with the Greeks. These Maccabees hid in the hills of Judea using guerrilla tactics to attack the better trained enemy. Eventually, they retook the land from the Greeks, reclaimed the Temple in Jerusalem, and consecrated it in G-d’s name. They only had oil for one day, but miraculously, that oil lasted for eight days.
On this Chanukah of 2023 the IDF is our modern day Macabees. It is because of these young defenders, now and throughout the ages, that the Jewish people have survived and today we celebrate our homeland in Israel. Am Yisrael Chai! Chanukah is the celebration of a miracle: of right over might; of the defeat of a powerful army by a small band of resistance, and for a light that should have burned for twelve hours but lasted for eight days.
Israel is in a difficult place. On the one hand, it needs to protect its citizens from terrorists while simultaneously defend itself from a constant barrage of missile attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah, another terrorist organization with sanctuary in Lebanon. Israel is damned no matter what it does to protect itself. Its opposition has the answer to this conundrum, “From the river to the sea.” Which means the destruction of the Jewish people and their homeland.
Chanukah is our reminder that we, the Jewish people, will NEVER let that happen again. Am Yisrael Chai! We were first exiled from our home by the Assyrians in 733 BCE. Then came the Babylonian exile forced upon the Jews by the Persian king Cyrus the Great. Throughout the centuries Jews suffered greatly and faced hatred in many of their adopted lands. For example, during the Crusades Jewish communities were targeted and massacred. In 1492 came Queen Isabella’s Alhambra Decree. Spanish Catholics believed Jews had too much economic influence over their kingdom. It was more like religious prejudice that led to The Inquisition and Jewish expulsion. Jews either had to leave Spain or convert to Christianity.
During the 19th century, pogroms targeted the Jewish communities of Russia where antisemites murdered, raped, and destroyed Jewish businesses and property. My own grandparents emigrated to the United States hoping to get away from certain death insured by living in Latvia. And then came the Holocaust where Adolf Hitler and the Nazis formulated their Final Solution of the “Jewish Problem” resulting in the genocide of the Jewish people of Germany, Austria, and other countries throughout Eastern Europe. SIX MILLION Jews were slaughtered. NEVER AGAIN!!
One of the teachings Jews are taught while growing up is the sanctity of human life. It’s against our value system to take another life, for we truly believe, “Save a life, save the world.” It is recorded in the Mishna, a collection of Jewish oral traditions, and even copied in Islam’s Koran. The invasion of Gaza and the loss of Palestinian life is not easy for us to swallow.
Chanukah provides us with light showing the way. We will not become homeless again. We will not wander this planet and be ridiculed, hated, and slaughtered. Like the Macabees before us, Israel, our home, now has the mantel to ensure Jewish survival. And like the Macabees of old, we will survive and make sure the human race moves forward in the centuries to come. Am Yisrael Chai!
But Israel needs to have a post-war plan for Gaza. We need to put in place a Marshall Plan, similar to the one designed by Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed the United States provide economic assistance to restore the infrastructure and economy of postwar Europe. Hopefully, Israeli leadership will develop a plan to help lead the Palestinian people from the rubble of their homeland to an oasis on the Mediterranean Sea.
