Pietro Santi Bartoli, Judaicus Triumphus, from Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Veteres arcus augustorum triumphis insignes (Rome: Ad templum Sanctae Mariae de Pace, 1690).
Hanukkah v. Christmas
In liberal, Jewish households, Hanukkah has always been something of an embarrassment. First, there’s the unavoidable truth that Hannukah is no match for Christmas. Liturgically speaking, it’s a minor holiday; it ranks somewhere between Simchat Torah and Tu Bishvat, neither of which most Gentiles (and many Jews) have even heard of. So, efforts by assimilated Jews since the 19th century, and especially the 1950s, to treat Hanukkah like Christmas are a stretch. The birthday of God (even if you are a non-believer) in 1 CE is objectively speaking a much bigger deal than the re-dedication by the victorious Maccabees (Judean rebels) of the second temple of Jerusalem (long since destroyed) in the 2nd century BCE.
Second, there’s the matter of the name. “Hanukkah” — in Hebrew, “חנך”, meaning “to dedicate” — only gained its association with the ancient temple and Winter holiday in the 19th century. Prior to that, the commemoration was known as the Festival of Lights, according to the Roman chronicler, Titus Flavius Josephus. That term, (of obscure origin), may have prompted the legend – taught in every Hebrew school — that oil in the lamps of the newly rededicated temple miraculously lasted eight nights instead of the expected one. That’s why there are eight nights of Hanukkah and why the menorah holds eight candles plus the Shamash (“שֶׁמֶשׁ”) or “helper candle”. It’s not exactly a loaves-and-fishes, or Santa Claes coming down the chimney miracle, but good enough. And it aided generations of Jewish parents teach their children a lesson in thrift: “Turn off the lights when you leave a room!”
There is much more to be said about the deficiency of Hannukah compared to Christmas (the music!), but this season, like the last one, there’s a third factor that far dominates the others: How can ekht Jews, in Yiddish Menschen, celebrate a holiday that honors an ancient victory when the Jewish military in Israel continues to rain death and destruction upon their Palestinian brothers and sisters? What Jew with a moral compass can challenge the Catholic Pope’s recent chastisement of Israel, following an airstrike in Jabaliathat killed 12 members of one family, including seven children: “Yesterday, children were bombed. This is cruelty, not war.” After spokespersons for the Israeli government protested Francis’s words, the pope amplified his condemnation: “And with pain, I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty!” Shade on any Jew – Israeli, American or other – who still supports Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians. May their Hanukkahs be dark!
A deliberate decision to kill civilians
We learned this week from an investigation by The New York Times, that in the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas outrages, Israeli leaders specifically changed military rules of engagement to allow up to 100 civilians to be killed for every high-ranking Hamas militant targeted, and 20 civilians for every rank-and-file militant. The latter weren’t necessarily armed or uniformed, billeted in barracks, or travelling in convoys. They might be seasonal fighters, recently mobilized, or even just lookouts or money changers – in effect, Hamas affiliated gofers. When killed, they might have been in bed with their wives, seated at family dinners, or playing with their children. A successful attack is one that kills the target and inevitably everyone near them – right up to the predetermined limit.
In practice, many more Palestinian civilians are killed than even the high number permitted by Israeli officials. The bomb that killed Ibrahim Biari, a senior Hamas commander in October 2023, according to the Times, also killed 125 others, including many small children. Israeli government war protocols mean that 25 of that number were innocents. Which 25? The first or the last 25 dead? The youngest or the oldest 25 victims?
In addition to the deaths-per-strike ratio, the Israeli military established a civilian death cap of 500 per day, in effect a quota. If on Tuesday, 499 non-combatants are killed, medals may be awarded. If on Wednesday, the number is 501, an official expression of regret is due, like the following, issued by Netanyahu after the bombing of a tent camp at Tel al-Sultan in Rafah in southern Gaza in May 2024, setting it ablaze: “Despite our utmost efforts not to harm innocent civilians, last night, there was a tragic mistake. We are investigating the incident and will obtain a conclusion because this is our policy.” An IDF spokesman quickly walked back even that limited mea culpa, claiming without evidence, that the fire was caused by munitions stored in the tent camp. The more likely source of secondary explosions was cooking gas cylinders.
Subsequent investigations revealed that Israel knew full well that the camp was densely packed with refugees, and that its U.S. made GBU-39 bombs propelled lethal shrapnel and metal fragments as far as 600 meters. It’s also now clear that according to its revised rules of engagement, the deaths of as many as 200 civilians was considered a fair cost for whacking Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, two senior Hamas officials, on May 26, 2024. In fact, the Israeli military and civilian leadership might have congratulated itself; that bomb killed only 150.
Hamas militants have been killed by munitions grossly disproportionate to their purpose. Unguided 2,000-pound bombs, supplied by the U.S., have leveled entire apartment buildings. The consequence is an average daily death rate in Gaza higher than any other conflict this century. At least 10% of the pre-war Gaza population of 2.3 million has been killed or wounded, or else is missing or detained by Israeli security. Some detainees have been tortured. A third of the total casualties in Gaza are children. A report prepared by the EU representative for human rights Olof Skoog, (obtained by The Intercept) determined that because the Gaza death toll matches the regions demographic breakdown, indiscriminate attacks – war crimes — are occurring. If it were otherwise, a far greater percentage of young men than women and children would be dying.
The Hanukkah blessing
This Hanukkah, my daughter Diane (aka Sarah, after the biblical matriarch) is visiting us from Pasadena, CA. We both recently fled in opposite directions; she west, to escape an abusive husband in Chicago; my wife Harriet and I east, to Norwich, U.K. to evade incipient American fascism. We also left because we wanted to be closer to Harriet’s two daughters and her increasingly frail parents. On each night of Hanukkah – it commenced this year on December 25 — Sarah has lit the candles while I recited the single prayer I know:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ
אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ, מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,
אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֺתָיו
וְצִוָּֽנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל חֲנֻכָּה.
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.
The blessing starts, like most Jewish prayers, with an encomium to the master on high: “Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all…” (I’ve always hated the bowing and scraping in Jewish prayers, but the blessing gets better) “…who honors us with moral action”. Mitzvot ( מִצְוָה) is usually translated “commandments,” but my version isn’t wrong, and it allows us to embrace the righteous obligation to justice felt by generations of Jewish dissidents and activists. Hanukkah for me is a link between the past and a redeemed or post-revolutionary future.
The candles Sarah lights are the cheap kind I grew up with — corkscrewed and fragile, fast burning and messy. They leave droplets of green, blue, purple or orange wax on our steel and brass menorah and Formica countertop. After about 20 minutes, they flicker out. Each night, I’ve watched the last candle flame die. Sometimes, it’s the Shamash, the light that delivers light to the others.
It’s unclear now, when the Palestinians in Gaza will be delivered from their torment — their second Nakba — or who will help bring them the light of peace and justice. But given their resilience, they will in time recover and thrive as a community. The Jewish people also suffered a scourge – a Holocaust even greater in scale — and yet survived and prospered, both as a global diaspora and in eretz Israel, historic Palestine. But how will Israeli Jews and their supporters in the U.S. ever overcome the shame they must feel – if not now then soon — for what they have wrought in Gaza?
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