Happy Hanukkah, and Am Yisrael Chai

T he deep Zionism of the Hanukkah story resonates especially in this era of endemic anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Hanukkah celebrates Jews’ successful assertion of their right to live freely in their ancestral homeland with Jerusalem as its capital, and warns that without Israel, Jews cannot be truly free anywhere. That the holiday came to be celebrated as a mystical miracle instead of a military triumph illustrates how good treatment of Jews in a non-Jewish state is inherently contingent and insufficient, and only an independent Jewish state can guarantee Jewish wellbeing.

In 167 b.c. the Greek Seleucid king Antiochus IV conquered Jerusalem. After slaughtering much of the population in retribution for the cost of a two-year siege, Antiochus occupied the city and began the process of Hellenizing the region’s remaining Jews. He banned Jewish ritual and desecrated the Second Temple, plundering its golden artifacts, installing a statue of Zeus, and sacrificing a pig on the alter. His idolatry, which aimed at the heart of the world’s first (and then only) monotheistic faith, seemed designed to inflame resentment.

Many Jews accepted imposition of Greek culture, but not all. Mattathias, a Jewish priest, refused to bow to a pagan statue as Antiochus decreed. He then killed the Hellenized Jew who stepped forward to do so in his place and destroyed the idol. Mattathias’s son, Judah Maccabee, led the ensuing guerrilla war against the Hellenizing faction of the Jewish population and then an outright rebellion against the Seleucids. The Maccabees reconquered Jerusalem in 164 b.c. Eventually, the Hasmonean Dynasty emerged as kings of an independent Jewish kingdom after several more decades of intermittent warfare, factional disputes among the Maccabees, and assassinations among both the Greeks and the Jews.

While Hanukkah celebrates the “miracle” of the reconsecration of the Temple, the exact nature of the miracle itself is less clear. To practical minds, the miracle is that the Maccabees were able to defeat the Greeks and their Hellenizing program. The Seleucids were heirs to Alexander the Great and a leading empire and military power in their own right. The Maccabees were priests and peasants with no dominion, allies, or army. The Maccabees’ military victory seemed inconceivable, and stands in stark contrast to the Jewish rebellion against Roman rule in a.d. 66 which ended in ruin, the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, and the exile of the Jews.

And yet, the more familiar miracle of Hanukkah comes from the Babylonian Talmud. When the Maccabees went to reconsecrate the Temple and light the menorah, they found only enough oil to burn for one day. That small amount miraculously burned for eight days until more supplies arrived. Thus derives the tradition of the festival of lights, lighting candles for eight nights and eating potato latkes and donuts fried in oil.

That the Babylonian Talmud records this mystical, apolitical miracle instead of the historical assertion of Jewish strength and self-rule is notable. The Jews who wrote the Babylonian Talmud in the 5th century a.d. lived in Mesopotamia under the last great Persian Empire. The quality of Jewish life under the Persians ranged from relative freedom to deep oppression, according to the whims of the Persian rulers. The writers of the Talmud knew that whatever freedom and security they enjoyed was contingent on the good graces of the emperor and his bureaucracy, and that celebrating Jews overthrowing their imperial conquerors could be seen as a provocation.

From this perspective, the Hanukkah lesson is that the Jewish People are not free under either the direct oppression of the Greek Empire nor the softer oppression of Persian rulers. Indeed, the Jewish exile has seen many periods of relative peace and prosperity: under the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Christian Europeans, and Muslim Arabs. All of them eventually came to an end, often suddenly and violently. The State of Israel and the Zionist claim embody the Hanukkah story’s demand that Jews have the right to independence, and Israel is our modern answer to Hanukkah’s assertion that a Jewish state is a necessary protection even for Jews living in the diaspora.

This necessity has never been more obvious. Around the world, governments turn a blind eye as their Jewish residents are attacked in the streets, pushed out of intellectual, civil, and artistic institutions, and see their religious and communal institutions vilified, vandalized, and burned. While many leaders have promised to stop the attacks and have spoken eloquently about rejecting antisemitism, meaningful consequences for the perpetrators have been sparse. And efforts to prevent attacks or combat incitement against Jews seem ineffectual at best. The intellectual elite feigns ignorance and helplessness, declares neutrality, or outright supports attacks on Jews in the name of a circuitous system of morality in which all Jews are collectively guilty because some Jews commit the crime of defending themselves. And, as ever, assimilated Jews seek to prove their fidelity to their adopted political and social identities by condemning those Jews who insist on perpetuating Judaism in the Jewish homeland. Despite the intervening centuries, Jewish acceptance, safety and wellbeing outside of the Jewish state are still contingent; Jews might be treated well by their neighbors and protected by the government, but only if it’s politically prudent, Israel behaves, and the Jews aren’t too Jewish. Israel’s existence ensures Jews always have a place to go.

This Hanukkah, celebrate the miracle, both ancient and modern, of Jews throwing off the yoke of oppression and regaining their freedom and independence. Celebrate that the Jews of Israel do not have to deny their own consciousness to avoid offending their rulers. Celebrate the miracle of Israel’s capability to fight and win on seven fronts. This Hanukkah, celebrate the miracle that the Jewish nation lives — Am Yisrael chai.