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Liberal-thinking Jews like me need a new way to think about Hanukkah
(JTA) — We may not yet realize it, but we need a new story of Hanukkah, lest we lose the next Jewish generation to disillusionment with Jewish power and might.
I grew up in the generation that delighted in Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, only to discover on my first trip to Israel in 1969 that the exercise of Jewish power meant ruling over the Palestinian people that also wanted its own homeland. Since then, I have been committed to coexistence and equality as the only viable path. I have also, as a poet, sought a “new old” Jewish spirituality that doesn’t rely on the supernatural, and now have written a prayerbook that puts the universe, the earth and Jewish tradition, not God, at the center of our prayers.
What do I make of Hanukkah, our most overtly political and militaristic holiday, in the context of my beliefs? How do I as a liberal thinker approach a holiday that has become a celebration of supernatural miracles and divine intervention?
I stand in a long line of Jews wrestling with these issues. The Talmud famously asks “What is Hanukkah?” as if the rabbis having the conversation had never heard of it. They go on to tell the story of the miracle made by God: how one day’s supply of oil lasted for eight days, enabling them to rededicate the Temple that had been polluted by Israel’s Greek-Syrian oppressors. That is the story we have been telling our children ever since.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the great Yiddish and Hebrew writer, Mendele the Book Seller (in Hebrew, Mendele Mocher Seforim) wrote a story asking the same question: “What is Hanukkah?” The story presents a little boy in Russia who angers his father by asking for Hanukkah to last a whole year, so that he could have a permanent vacation from the cheder and its rigors. His father slaps him, knocking the kippah off his head, and sends him looking for other sources of knowledge. He eventually finds volumes written by enlightened Jews who present Hanukkah in a wholly new guise: as both an anti-imperial war and as a civil war of Jewish loyalists against modernizing Jewish Hellenists.
This second story, which we have been telling for the past century, has been reinforced by the Zionist approach to the holiday, which is evident in the secular song, “Mi Yimalel.” “Who can retell the things that befell us/ Who can count them?/ In every age, a hero or sage came to our aid.” The sage was a concession in the English translation of the song; the Hebrew version features only the gibbor, the hero, celebrated for his valor. It is no surprise that in Israel Hanukkah became the nationalist holiday par excellence.
In our time, neither the religious story of childhood’s miracles, nor the account of Maccabean military might, rings true. This year especially it will be hard for many American Jews to celebrate Hanukkah as a holiday glorifying a Jewish military victory. So many of us have come to see that militarism will not guarantee peace for the people of Israel, but rather only contribute to a cycle of endless war. The spiritual visionaries of early Zionism — Ahad Ha-am, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Henrietta Szold —foresaw that a nation state using power for self-preservation would be in an eternal war with the Arab people and would inevitably deform the values of Judaism that they held dear. We needed a nation state to save the Jews of the world after the Holocaust and our expulsion from Arab lands. We still need a place of refuge from antisemitism, not a state that generates more antisemitism through its actions. Now we need our nation state to share the land with the other people that holds it dear.
In a world where Jewish identity is often defined by culture rather than faith, interpreting Hanukkah as a truly spiritual story is also no easy task. Long ago, the rabbis picked for the Haftarah of Hanukkah a lesson from Zechariah. In Debbie Friedman’s popular version, it goes like this: “Not by might and not by power, but by spirit alone shall we all live in peace.” American Jews crave spirituality, though few of us believe in a God who makes miracles. We speak of the Hanukkah miracle to our children, all the while knowing that it is but a children’s story. Most university-educated Jews would have been counted among the Hellenizers; we would not have survived the Maccabee’s zealous hatred of all that was modern.
So, for the mostly non-observant, celebrating Hanukkah as a victory over assimilationists is highly ironic, especially when we stage it for our children in the materialist, commercial idiom of the dominant culture.
So we Jews need a new story of Hanukkah. Many have begun to focus on the lights themselves, making Hanukkah a holiday of searching for sources of inner light in the midst of a dark time — an annual dark time of year in yet another dark time in the history of the world, a world that is always broken and always needing repair, tikkun olam.
That sort of spirituality is what I am trying to get at in this contemporary Hanukkah prayer, “Meditation before the Hanukkah Candles”:
At a great distance from wondrous miracles,
I sit and watch the tiny candles
Burning in my deep diaspora,
Competing with their small light
Against the giant blaze of Christmas,
And feel grateful for a festival of small lights,
Because only from small actions—
Giving a soft answer,
Turning away anger,
Increasing peace at home—
Is the world sustained.
Blessed is our tradition
Dedicating small candles
To great deeds.
There is an irony, of course, in comparing the small ethical and moral actions in one’s life to the great deeds of the Hanukkah story, but that is precisely the point. It is time for a new Hanukkah, kind and compassionate, turning narrow nationalism into a universalist pursuit of the world to come promised by our prophets. With kindness, the world to come can come now.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
The post Liberal-thinking Jews like me need a new way to think about Hanukkah appeared first on The Forward.
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French Jewish Community Marks 20 Years Since Ilan Halimi’s Brutal Murder
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
France’s Jewish community on Tuesday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the death of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man who was brutally tortured to death, as his memory continues to be defaced amid a rising tide of antisemitism threatening Jews and Israelis across the country.
“Twenty years on, Ilan Halimi’s memory still needs to be protected and honored, yet it continues to come under attack, as recent vandalism at his memorial site shows,” the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — wrote in a post on X.
“Antisemitism remains a persistent threat in France today,” the statement read.
Le 20 janvier 2006 marque l’enlèvement et le début de la séquestration d’Ilan Halimi, 23 ans, parce qu’il était Juif.
20 ans plus tard, alors que la mémoire d’Ilan Halimi doit être protégée et honorée, elle continue d’être atteinte, comme l’ont montré les récents actes de… pic.twitter.com/Htu9ntMHhq
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) January 20, 2026
Last week, another olive tree planted to honor Halimi’s memory was vandalized and cut down, as French authorities continue efforts to replant trees in remembrance of the young Jewish man who was murdered in 2006.
“We will bring those responsible to justice,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez wrote in a post on X. “Our collective outrage is matched only by our unwavering determination to combat antisemitic and anti-religious acts that continue to tarnish the memory of an innocent man.”
This latest antisemitic act came after a plaque honoring Halimi was vandalized in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a town in southeastern France, prompting local authorities to open an investigation for “destruction and antisemitic damage.”
According to local reports, a 29-year-old man with no prior criminal record has been arrested. While he admitted to the acts, he denied any antisemitic motive and is now awaiting trial.
Last year, a tree planted in memory of Halimi was also vandalized and cut down in Épinay-sur-Seine, a suburb north of Paris.
Two Tunisian twin brothers were arrested and convicted for cutting down the tree, but were acquitted of the antisemitism charges brought against them.
Both of them were sentenced to eight months in prison, but one of them received a suspended sentence, meaning he will not serve time unless he commits another offense or violates certain conditions.
According to local media, one of the brothers has reportedly been deported from France.
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, Halimi was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, French authorities planted the first olive tree in Halimi’s memory. However, the young Jewish boy’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne, where he was found dying near a railway track.
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Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass
(JTA) — A Jewish member of Australian Parliament recited the Mourner’s Kaddish in an address Monday to honor the victims of the Hanukkah massacre on Bondi Beach.
The address, delivered by Jewish parliamentarian and former attorney general Mark Dreyfus, came over a month after two gunmen motivated by what authorities said was “Islamic State ideology” opened fire on a celebration in Sydney, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. Most of the victims were Jewish, and Dreyfus read all of their names aloud.
Dreyfus, who wore a kippah for the presentation, then commended the “acts of extraordinary courage” by bystanders and emergency workers during the attack, naming Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Muslim man who received widespread support from the Jewish community after he was shot while disarming one of the attackers. He also told the Australian House of Representatives that the country’s “response cannot be confined to grief,” exhorting his fellow lawmakers to take action around “upholding our laws against hate.”
Then he invited everyone present to rise for the Mourner’s Kaddish, recited in Jewish communities in memory of the dead.
“You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest, an attack like this hurts all of us,” Dreyfus said, describing the prayer as “a prayer about life, dignity and the hope for peace at times of profound loss.”
The public recitation was redolent of the decision of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to publish the Hebrew text of the prayer on its front page following the murder of 11 Jews in their synagogue there in 2018.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTtw-r7Dehs/?hl=en
Late Tuesday, Australia’s parliament passed anti-hate speech and gun reform bills initiated in the wake of the attack. The gun reform bill included new checks on firearm license applications and a national gun buy-back program, while the anti-hate speech bill banned hate groups and imposed penalties for preachers who promote hate.
The hate speech component won support from liberal lawmakers who said they had free-speech concerns after it was weakened from its initial version.
“The terrorists at Bondi Beach had hatred in their hearts and guns in their hands,” wrote Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a post on X. “Today we passed new laws that deal with both. Combatting antisemitism and cracking down on guns.”
The new laws come as Australia grapples with another searing antisemitic incident. Late in the day on Monday, five Jewish teenagers in Melbourne were chased for several minutes by a car whose occupants chanted “Heil Hitler” and performed Nazi salutes at them.
The boys, aged 15 and 16 and easily identifiable as Orthodox Jews, were walking home from Adass High School when the incident occurred in the proximity of Adass Israel Synagogue, which was firebombed in December 2024. No arrests were immediately made.
“The antisemitic hate incident last night in St Kilda targeting young Jewish boys has no place in our country,” Albanese in a statement, according to The Australian. “At a time when Australians are joining with the Jewish community in sorrow and solidarity, it is beyond disgusting to see these cowards shouting Nazi slogans at young people.”
The post Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass appeared first on The Forward.
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Number of UK Schools Marking Holocaust Has Dropped by Nearly 60% Since Oct. 7 Massacre
Tens of thousands joined the National March Against Antisemitism in London, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The number of British schools commemorating the Holocaust has plummeted by nearly 60 percent following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
Since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists perpetrated the largest single-day massacre of Jews since World War II, the number of secondary schools across the UK signed up for events commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place annually on Jan. 27, dropped to fewer than 1,200 in 2024 and 854 in 2025, according to data from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
The figure had been rising each year since 2019, reaching more than 2,000 secondary schools in 2023.
There are about 4,200 secondary schools in the UK.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis, chief rabbi of the UK, commented on the figures in an essay published in The Sunday Times, expressing alarm about an increasingly hostile environment for the British Jewish community.
“I fear for what will happen this year,” Mirvis wrote. “For if we cannot teach our children to remember the past with integrity and resolve, then we must ask ourselves what kind of future they will inherit.”
Mirvis urged readers to put themselves in the shoes of a UK teacher preparing a Holocaust memorial event. “Now imagine that as you begin to organize such an event, you learn that some parents of pupils at your school are unhappy about it,” he added. “One of the claims that Holocaust education is a form of “propaganda”; another insists that the event must not go ahead unless it also highlights the awful suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, described to The Times how some students “arrive in the classroom with views shaped by social media trends rather than evidence.”
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) released a statement on Monday reflecting on the drop in UK schools recognizing the Holocaust.
“Holocaust Memorial Day is not about politics. It is about memory, responsibility, and education. It exists to honor the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and to remind future generations of the consequences of hatred, indifference, and extremism,” the EJC stated. “Avoiding commemoration out of fear of controversy undermines the very purpose of education. When remembrance becomes optional, memory itself becomes fragile.”
The EJC continued, “Now is precisely the moment when Holocaust education matters most: when misinformation spreads easily, when antisemitism is openly visible, and when fewer survivors remain to bear witness. Schools play a vital role in preserving this memory, not only for Jewish communities, but for society as a whole.”
Dwindling commemoration of the Holocaust comes amid a steep surge in antisemitism across the UK.
The Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June this year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.
In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 anti-Jewish hate crimes — the country’s second worst year for antisemitism, despite an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.
“When a trigger event such as the Oct. 7 attack occurs, antisemitic incidents initially spike to a record peak; then gradually recede until they plateau at a higher level than before the original trigger event occurred,” CST stated.
These figures juxtapose with 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
The struggles of the UK’s educational establishment to counter the rising antisemitism problem mirror the ongoing challenges confronted by its medical institutions.
In November, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the NHS, amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.
The comments came weeks after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a new plan to address what he described as “just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively” in the country’s National Health Service (NHS).
One notable case drawing attention involved Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, who police arrested on Oct. 21, charging her with four offenses related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred. In November, she was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating Hamas’s terrorism.
Other incidents in the UK included a Jewish family fearing their London doctor’s antisemitism influenced their disabled son’s treatment. The North London hospital suspended the physician who was under investigation for publicly claiming that all Jews have “feelings of supremacy” and downplaying antisemitism.