Put a candle in the window, ‘cause I feel I’ve got to move; Though I’m going, going, I’ll be coming home soon, Long as I can see the light. – Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970
In Jamaica, New York, hundreds of students riot and attempt to lynch a long-standing teacher who had the audacity to be photographed holding a sign that read “I stand with Israel.” The teacher takes refuge in a locked room and is finally rescued by police. And even as i write this, Teaneck high school students – yes, heavily Jewish Teaneck – are holding a “walk-out for Palestine” today, approved by the local school board, causing all the Jewish students to stay home. In Brentwood, a fashionable Los Angeles community, a synagogue is smeared with paint that reads “Shame on the Israeli killers,” and fake blood is splattered on the driveway of the president of AIPAC. In Dallas – just down the street from my own former congregation – Neo-Nazis hold a march, yelling: “Jews and gays must die.” Some Jewish schools instruct their students not to wear their Jewish uniforms. Some Jews hide any visible sign of their religion – like a kippah or Magen David – while walking down the street.
It would not surprise me if some families are wary of putting a menorah in their window this Hanukkah and so identifying themselves as a Jewish household.
As the level of antisemitism skyrockets, gun ownership in America, including among Jews, reaches an unprecedented level; more than half of all American households now own a weapon.
All around the world, the bleak picture is the same: Tens of thousands of screaming, violent protesters hold pro-Hamas marches in virtually every major city, from Stockholm to Sydney, calling for a Judenrein [cleansed of Jews] Middle East. Several nations have recalled their ambassadors to Israel in protest over the events in Gaza; some, like South Africa, even rebuke their Israeli consuls for “insulting the Palestinians.” World leaders, like Turkey’s Erdogan and Russia’s Putin, condemn Israel as the aggressor, all but ignoring the Simchat Torah massacre and the depraved atrocities carried out by Hamas.
The message of Hanukkah in 2023: Jews of the world, come home to Israel
Could there possibly be a better time than now to welcome the upcoming Hanukkah holiday? We could all use a worldwide infusion of light to brighten a planet upon which darkness has descended; and we surely need Maccabean-like heroes – our brave IDF soldiers chief among them – to vanquish the growing evil in a world gone mad.
Hanukkah this year has an even more important message for all those who are willing and able to embrace it. The menorah – the hanukkiah – is a beacon to world Jewry, beckoning our fellow Jews to come home. For despite the fact that we are currently in the midst of a war here, despite the horrible disaster we experienced on October 7, Israel is still – in fact, more than ever – the safest place for a Jew to be. This is because, unlike in the days past of Inquisitions, pogroms, and the Shoah, we are not helpless in the face of our foes. We have an army of our own – the finest on Earth – and we will defend ourselves until we achieve victory.
But the story of Hanukkah is not only about the triumph of light over darkness and the triumph of the Jews over the Syrian-Greeks. It is first about coming together as a people and arriving at the realization that, for all our well-intended desire to integrate into the global community, we remain at heart “a nation that dwells alone.” Judah the Maccabee and his illustrious family had to convince the Jews of their time that when we dilute our own culture and downplay our uniqueness, we are dangerously vulnerable and subject to disappearance; but when we accentuate our particularity, we become a pure oil that glows with unparalleled brilliance.
It is no different today. True, we still have some steadfast friends, like the United States, but for the most part we are a lone, isolated voice of morality and justice in a very, very barren wilderness. As English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson so eloquently wrote, “No thing is better than this, when known; that every hard thing is done alone.”
Amid the turmoil over the Gaza war, knowing that the level of antisemitism and opposition to Israel – particularly among the younger generation – is rising precipitously, it is time for every Jew to take off the blinders, search his or her soul, and come home to Israel. Every Jewish community in the Diaspora has a finite shelf life, an “expiration date.” We don’t know exactly when it is, only that it is, and then we must move on, hopefully to our own, Jewish country. That, after all, is the end game of history, the oft-pronounced will of God reflected in our weekly Torah readings and the prayers we recite daily as we face Jerusalem.
There will never be a more opportune or auspicious time to come than now, and so we sincerely declare to all our Jewish brethren in the Diaspora: “We love you, we want you, we need you.” It is a win-win.
The rabbis tell us that in the end of days – perhaps this is the very period that we are in today – only two of the ancient Jewish holidays will remain; Purim and Hanukkah. What is so special about these two? On both of them, we maintained our faith in God, yet at the same time we fought for our survival. On Purim, we prayed and we fasted, and then we organized our own militia to defeat the followers of Haman who sought our extinction. “V’ha-ir Shushan tzahala v’samecha” I translate as “When Tzahal came to Shushan, the Persian capital, we rejoiced.”
And on Hanukkah, we battled successfully against the forces of Antiochus prior to rekindling the menorah in the Beit Hamikdash; only after our military took up arms against the enemy did we experience the divine miracle that allowed our eternal light to shine once again. It is this unique combination of forces – the mighty Jewish people partnering with the eternal God, working together as one to achieve victory – that makes these two holidays unique on our calendar.
The slogan now sweeping through the Jewish world is “Bring our hostages home – now!” The word “now” is always accentuated; written in bold, with red letters and underlined. I must say that while I fervently pray for the return of our kidnapped loved ones, I’m quite concerned about that word because if “now” means “at any price” – even, God forbid, the wholesale release of murderous Hamas terrorists – then that is a price we cannot and must not pay.
But “now” is certainly the absolutely right word in beseeching our fellow Jews to come home to where you belong; now, while you have the chance. Now, before, God forbid, it is too late.
Am Yisrael chai.
The writer is director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra’anana. Write him at jocmtv@netvion.net.il.