Australia attack brings Hanukkah to all of us

In a couple of weeks, we’ll begin to ring in the new year across the globe. Often our first pictures of the celebration as we’re preparing for our new year’s eve plans are glimpses of the Sydney Opera House with revelers and fireworks a half day ahead of us.

The first night of Hanukkah began for all of us on nearby Bondi Beach.  Jews gathered to celebrate the next 8 nights were met by two gunmen in a country that has mostly banned guns. 

There are at least 15 dead including a Holocaust survivor and two rabbis.  Dozens of others are injured and in hospitals. 

Jews are once again reminded that there are people who don’t want them to exist, anywhere. The continued media framing that these attacks are protests “against Israel” is as laughable as it is unfunny. 

Sydney and Israel are roughly 9,000 miles apart. There is no construct that credibly allows for two men opening fire on beachgoing worshipers to be protesting Benjamin Netanyahu. 

That’s not what is going on, nor has it been since October 7^th, 2023. “Globalize the intifada” wasn’t just a cool slogan for progressive trust fund kids on ivy league campuses. It is a well-funded active campaign, complete with entire news organizations aiding, abetting, and even misdirecting activities. 

Bondi Beach was just the latest example. The attacks on groups large and small, even against individual homes who have the temerity to put a menorah in their window, are growing too numerous to mention individually. 

The Jewish people have endured literal thousands of years protecting themselves against those who would wipe them from the maps. The Hanukkah story itself is part of that history. It’s time non-Jews learned what Hanukkah is, what it stands for, and why it must be celebrated.  

It’s not just “Jewish Christmas” as many of us from rural areas without many Jewish folks around were taught.  There’s a real meaning here, quite applicable to modern times and events.

A couple hundred years before our first Christmas, ancient Greeks had occupied much of Jewish land and had taken over and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem.  A small army of the Macabees, led by a priest and his sons, fought to regain the Temple.  

Once successfully re-occupying the temple, they found only enough oil to re-light the sacred menorah for one day.  The miracle of Hannukah was that the oil lasted for eight days, proving enough time to provision additional supplies.

Hanukkah is now celebrated for asserting religious freedom as well as bringing light into darkness. It’s also a triumph of a smaller and outnumbered people who remain dedicated to their most core beliefs against an ever threatening, secular world.

Many of our news reports these days are dark. Conflict seems to be growing, and divisions among our own people or even among westerners in general seem to be escalating.  

For Jews, specifically, there seems no safe haven. Public gatherings are being targeted. Private homes are being shot at. Individuals are being singled out for harassment in public if they “look Jewish”. 

This is not OK. This is not normal. There is no historical context that need be explained, no understanding of Israel’s government, nor that of their relations with neighboring countries or factions that make any of these events justifiable. Not in America, not in Australia, nor anywhere else in the “civilized” world.

For the remaining nights of Hanukkah, I would recommend those who value our freedom to find some way to celebrate.  These values are our values. The triumph of light over darkness is our celebration.

It’s not an alternative way to celebrate Christmas, but instead, a pre-cursor to it. In many ways it’s also akin to Easter, when Christians celebrate the triumph of light over the darkness of the tomb.

We like our holidays to be festive times. Hanukkah is one that celebrates somber resolve, perseverance, and ultimately triumph.  

We’ll soon be through our holidays and have hopefully happier pictures coming again from Sydney.  With the New Year’s celebration comes resolutions. 

Let us resolve to stand with our Jewish friends, partner with them and support them in their perseverance, and comfort and protect them as we can.

This is ultimately the only path to secure basic freedoms for all of us. This, together, is how we triumph.