Annually, within the darkest days of winter, Hanukkah reliably arrives. We kindle lights and focus on the potential for miracles. Annually is completely different. We return to Hanukkah a bit older and altered by the modifications inside ourselves, our communities, and the world. This 12 months is darker than any I’ve lived via. Like so many grieving each Palestinian and Israeli family members, these previous two months have introduced the deepest horror and heartbreak of my life.
Although Hanukkah is a competition that commemorates miracles “in days of outdated,” there are none for the two.3 million Palestinians and over 100 Israeli hostages in Gaza because the Israeli authorities relentlessly bombards them. Israel’s brutal navy siege has reduce off electrical energy, clear water, drugs, gas, meals. As winter arrives, the darkness grows heavier. Thousands and thousands have been displaced and pushed additional and additional south. Nowhere in Gaza is protected.
In my despair, I’m clinging to the sacred Jewish custom of interpretation, of that means making, of midrash. Significantly, I’m clinging to the truth that Hanukkah is a narrative about Jewish resistance to oppression.
For some, it’s concerning the small band of Jewish fighters, the Maccabees, who battled for energy and land, and received the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The concept underlying this focus of the story is that may is correct. On this telling, Jewish liberation comes via infinite militarism, dominance, and territorial management.
However for me, the true miracle within the story is the other: The rabbis of the Talmud, who rejected this deal with militarism, selected for the prophetic portion on Shabbat the traces in Zechariah 4:6: “Not by may, nor by energy, however by spirit.” Amidst our absolute horror at this second, we’re instructing our younger folks and reminding ourselves that bombs don’t result in peace, and {that a} way forward for Jewish liberation is simply doable via spirited dedication to liberation for Palestinians, too. That resistance to oppression just isn’t solely about self-protection, however about constructing a world the place everyone seems to be free and protected.
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The distinction in perspective isn’t just a matter of non secular interpretation. It represents the ethical, political crossroads for my neighborhood—and for all folks on this time.
For the reason that horrific assault on October seventh, when Hamas killed about 1,200 folks and took hostage practically 250 extra, the Israeli authorities has pursued a genocidal conflict, killing over 17,000 folks in Gaza together with over 7,000 youngsters. By the tip of October, the variety of youngsters killed had already surpassed the annual variety of youngsters killed throughout each different battle zone on the earth since 2019. With the complete and full backing of the U.S. authorities, the Israeli navy has been bombing Gaza relentlessly—destroying houses, hospitals, refugee camps, water desalination crops, universities, and libraries.
This disregard for human life extends to the Israeli hostages, too. Members of the Israeli authorities have expressed their indifference to their fates as their households wait torturously. Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich stated, “We now have to be merciless now and to not suppose an excessive amount of concerning the hostages.”
This conflict has already created generations of trauma. 1000’s of youngsters with out mother and father, mother and father with out their infants, an unfathomable man-made humanitarian disaster. For the Israeli authorities, there isn’t a purpose, no plan, besides to drive the utmost variety of Palestinians from the land in a marketing campaign of full ethnic cleaning. We purpose, stated retired IDF Main Common Giora Eiland: “to create situations the place life in Gaza turns into unsustainable.” He added, “Gaza will turn into a spot the place no human being can exist.”
Israeli Safety Cupboard Member Avi Dichter echoed this sentiment when he stated “We are actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” He’s linking the present Israeli assault on Gaza to the violent displacement on the founding of the state, often called the Nakba (or disaster) when Zionist militias drove 750,000 Palestinians from their houses. The heartbreaking marches we now see of Palestinian youngsters clinging to 1 valuable merchandise, pushed south, are eerily paying homage to the black and white images from that first expulsion. The demise and dispossession we’re watching right now already exceeds the toll in 1948.
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In what world can we think about that these historic atrocities by this Israeli regime towards thousands and thousands of Palestinian civilians will usher in a way forward for security or safety for Jewish Israelis? There isn’t a ethical, political or historic rationale to recommend that genocidal state violence produces something however extra violence.
The Maccabees, who received the battle we commemorate throughout Hanukkah, then went on to struggle—and lose—many extra bloody and useless wars. Their story is lauded by Zionists as a victory, however it may simply as simply be understood as a cautionary one concerning the want for territorial growth, conquering of land, and unrelenting militarism. The empire they received, and the Jewish commonwealth they established, was finally horribly corrupt and persecuted many. All in all, the Hasmonean interval of Jewish independence was a comparatively ignoble interval of Jewish historical past, lasting lower than 100 years. It led to catastrophe for the Jewish folks.
So how will we think about a special approach via this darkness? It’s a easy fact—whether or not gleaned from historical Jewish historical past or rooted in up to date geopolitics–that there isn’t a navy resolution to Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and dispossession of Palestinians. Solely a everlasting ceasefire, lifting the siege, returning all who’re held captive, and eventually righting a long time of injustice could make approach for a way forward for shared, and actual, peace.
Israeli and Palestinian security and lives are intertwined. Think about a shared future rooted in a society with out supremacy, domination, and oppression. An enduring peace, constructed on the idea of freedom, justice, and equality for all. Think about, for a second, changing the racist fantasy of a “land and not using a folks” with the fact of a land for the entire folks.
The miracle of resistance I select to honor this Hanukkah is the one favored by the rabbis of the diaspora. When the Maccabees restored the temple, they solely discovered one jar of oil, barely sufficient to maintain the menorah lit for sooner or later. But, it lasted eight days, the time it takes to press olives into a brand new jar of oil. This Hanukkah, I wish to educate my 5 12 months outdated to actually examine the miracle of that oil: there’s sufficient. There may be sufficient for everybody.