Hanukkah this year is different, it is not only about marking events in ancient history but also about understanding current events.
Indeed, Hanukkah marks the inception of the European-Israeli conflict, the world’s oldest feud, which started 2,300 years ago when the Greeks invaded Judea – and is reaching new heights today.
The Greek invasion was soon followed by another European invader, the Romans, who exiled the Jews from Judea, mostly to Europe. As Judaism transformed to accommodate new realities of life in exile (Judaism 2.0), so did European opposition to Judaism. Today, as Jews are back in Judea and Judaism is once again transforming, with Zionism becoming its organizing principle (Judaism 3.0), European opposition is adjusting and being redirected through the Jewish state.
Unlike previous Hanukkahs, which were about cherishing our heritage and thanking God for our unlikely survival, this year’s Hanukkah is about crafting defense strategies and praying for our survival, as a new lethal assault on Judaism is once again coming from the West and expanding at an alarming pace.
Throughout history, European assaults on Judaism have had both a physical and ideological component. Sometimes, the attempt was to eradicate Judaism by assassinating Jew-by-Jew, such as during the Holocaust in 20th-century Europe. At other times, it was centered on the ideological element by negating the concept of Judaism, such as in 15th-century Spain.
The events marked by Hanukkah were the standard of such ideological assault: The Greeks were not merely interested in land, taxes, and enslavement of the local population, as previous invaders had been, they were interested in negating the idea of Judaism.
They did so by imposing their own European values (Hellanization) while not only suppressing Jewish values and worship but also setting both the social and legal groundwork to make Jewish practices taboo. A key component of the Greek assault on Judaism was the desecration of the Jewish Temple, the anchor of Judaism in those times.
Similarly, today we are in the midst of a large-scale attempt to negate the idea of Judaism through the negation of the concept of the Jewish state and Zionism, the anchor of Judaism in our times.
Greek/Europe sphere-of-influence
The Greeks did not act alone but relied on a global propaganda machine they set up covering from theater to science, in order to spread their European “truths.” This way, groups that successfully became Europeanized could partake in the ideological assault against the one stubborn nation that chose to stick to its own values: the Jews.
Similarly, today Europe is not acting alone. “European” values have percolated through to the United States, challenging the core principles of the American Revolution, which was not just about a physical migration from Europe, but also about an ideological exodus away from old European dogmas.
This even reached the US Senate this year, as a prominent senator parroted the messages lauded by the Greeks and other European attackers throughout the centuries: The Jewish nation is a pariah opposed by the rest of the world. Not only that, measures must be taken to help the Jews stop being that pariah.
The message is clear, then and now: “Jews must obey!” If they stop being a pariah, the thinking goes, everything will be fine – in 2nd-century BC Judea and in 21st-century Judea.
But the Jews did not obey
The holiday of Hanukkah marks this Jewish disobedience, which led to their miraculous survival.
The Jews face similar circumstances today, yet it is not yet so obvious.
Jewish arrogance?
In briefings and talks that I hold as part of the US tour for my new book, The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat is Coming from the West, I get a common pushback:
Jews are the safest they have ever been since we now have a Jewish state recognized by the world’s nations and supported by the world’s superpower. I am told that while my ideas are provocative, they belong to a different era, not to a time when there is a sovereign Jewish state.
While such a comeback is understandable, I explain that when it comes to defending against a strategic threat, one must not be complacent, nor shackled by conventional wisdom. Indeed, we are all arrogant in thinking that the establishment of the Jewish state marks the end of the 2,300 years of European-Israeli conflict.
Quite the opposite: Theodor Herzl, the visionary of the Jewish state, stunned his cosmopolitan milieu when, after researching the topic, he concluded that European opposition to Judaism was chronic and will evolve based on changing European and Jewish circumstances.
Indeed, the Greek opposition to Judaism that we mark on Hanukkah was meant to end a few centuries later. This is because Europeans accepted the Jews’ monotheistic religion in the form of Christianity. Instead of Europeanizing the Jews, Europe became “Judaized.”
End of the European-Israeli conflict?
Did Europe’s Judaization through Christianity bring to an end the conflict between Europe and Jews? Not at all. Europe hijacked Christianity, drafting it in service of the obsessive persecution of the Jews. Indeed, as Europeans became Christians, they began to slander Jews using religious currency.
When Europeans abandoned Christianity, they slandered Jews using secular frameworks (during Herzl’s time), and when Europeans adapted modern values, such as human rights and International Law, they quickly hijacked those positive values and used them to persecute Jews by directing their attacks against the Jewish state.
The choice Jews face this Hanukkah
As the events leading to Hanukkah progressed, the Greeks gave Jews a choice. It was the same choice given to Jews today: Either voluntarily stop being that pariah opposed by the rest of the world, or the world will solve the issue for you:
Sanctions and arrest warrants were the threats the Jews faced in the lead-up to the events of Hanukkah in the 2nd century BC, and these are the threats in the lead-up to Hanukkah, 2024.
Brave Jews, led by the Maccabees, defied the Greek empire and the rest of the world and, through faith and resolve, miraculously survived. This is the essence of the holiday of Hanukkah.
Brave Jews today in Israel are doing the same, so that we can all celebrate Hanukkah in years to come.
The writer is the author of a new book, The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat Is Coming from the West, and is currently on tour in the US. He is chairman of the Judaism 3.0 Think Tank and author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism (Judaism-Zionism.com). His geopolitical articles are featured on EuropeAndJerusalem.com
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