Hannukah – what are we celebrating (1) ?
JVL Introduction
Tonight marks the 3rd night of Hannukah, the first of which was marked by the antisemitic attack on people gathering on Bondi Beach.
Hannukah has become an important event in the Jewish calendar although it is considered fairly marginal for many strictly orthodox Jews. But for many of us – especially in the northern hemisphere – it is fun festival, with candle lighting, songs as well as prayers, games and delicious latkes and doughnuts. As a child I was told the story of the miracle of the oil (hence the oily festival food); that following a victory by the Maccabees, Jews were able to get back to their desecrated temple. However, there was barely enough oil left to keep the light burning beyond one day but it lasted the full eight days needed to collect more. Of course, we also link it to the Christmas present giving season and as one of many festivals of light to break up the darkness as we are experiencing the fewest hours of daylight.
But there are other aspects to the story of Hannukah that are not so comfortable for liberal minded Jews committed to standing against racism and ideas of ethnic supremacy because the story is also one of Maccabean military might and part of the reason for celebrating Hannukah is “glorifying a Jewish military victory.” This is even more difficult as we see no end to war in Israel and Palestine when Israel seems committed to militarism rather than negotiating a way for peace.
This article poses the question: is there a better focus for our celebration?
LL
This article was originally published by The Forward on Wed 10 Dec 2025. Read the original here.
Liberal-thinking Jews like me need a new way to think about Hanukkah
The author of a new prayer book for non-theistic Jews imagines a holiday that doesn’t celebrate military might or the supernatural
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Herbert Levine says that ‘We needed a nation state to save the Jews of the world after the Holocaust and our expulsion from Arab lands’.
In the first example Zionism of course came too late. Not only did it not save the Jews of the world but it was an obstacle to saving them, preferring the achievement of a state to the rescue of Jews.
Anyone in any doubt about this should recall Ben Gurion’s speech to Mapai’s Executive on 9 December
‘Mapai’s Central Committee on 9 December he explained why:
If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel’
In a 1937 speech to the 20th Zionist Congress, Weizmann stated that millions of the elderly were “economic & moral dust” in a cruel world’
The Zionist leadership favored halutzim, the young pioneers . Weizmann famously remarked in 1919 that “Zionism can’t provide a solution for catastrophes” when discussing Ukrainian refugees, preferring immigrants who were “spiritually and physically” fit for nation-building over those seeking mere refuge.
After the establishment of the Israeli state it was not a question of the Arab states expelling their Jewish citizens but Israel making every effort to ‘encourage’ them to leave, including the famous Baghdad bombins of Jewish institutions in 1950-1.
Herbert Levine writes: “This year especially it will be hard for many American Jews to celebrate Hanukkah as a holiday glorifying a Jewish military victory.” Chanukah has never been intended as a celebration of a military victory. Quite the opposite. The legend of the miracle of the oil (which doesn’t appear in the Books of Maccabees, which themselves were not included in the Bible) was invented by the rabbis in order to prevent the festival being celebrated as a military victory. What is celebrated is the miracle of the oil, not the military victory. The prayer book service for Chanukah includes the words: “We light these lights because of the miracles, the deliverances and the wonders”. The word “victories” is often added nowadays as a modern innovation, but this is not what appears in the Prayer Book. And, as Levine himself points out, the Haftara (reading from the Prophets) for the Shabbat service during Chanukah is the passage from Zechariah that includes the words, spoken by an angel to the prophet in a vision: “Not by might nor by power, but my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts” (“hosts” here means hosts of angels). This emphasizes the fact that it is the miracle that is celebrated, not the military victory.
For the historical background of the antagonism between the rabbis and the later Hasmonean/Maccabees, see my JVL piece here from Chanukah 2019:
https://jewishvoiceforliberation.org.uk/article/corbynism-and-chanukah-a-response-to-joe-glasman/
Anyone who doubts what Tony Greenstein writes here needs to engage with his wide-ranging evidence rather than merely react impulsively.