Let's Get Lit

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

My kids and I just got to my parents’ house for winter break. Because our time together is so limited, this will be my last column in 2024.

We don’t always get to celebrate Hanukkah with my folks so I’m very happy that we will this year. Before Covid made it too dangerous, they had an annual Hanukkah party and I would joke that every Jew in Wisconsin – all twelve of them – would convene beneath their roof.

But here’s the part that wasn’t a joke – it always seemed to me as if every single one of them was wildly accomplished, a star in their chosen field. And this brings me to a recurring thought about the Hanukkah story that I’ve been having lately – that, as a people, we are very much like that scant amount of oil that shouldn’t have been enough for even a single night, but somehow burned longer and brighter than such a tiny quantity could ever have been expected to shine.

Since posting on Friday, I’ve watched the I’m That Jew video around half a dozen times. Truly, it strains credulity that a people who statistically represent a fraction of the world population that’s much closer to 0% than to 1% -- it is barely believable that we are so visible, so vocal, so influential, such a formidable presence, our contributions to the collective good so staggeringly disproportionate to our numbers.

So I see the oil in the Hanukkah story as a metaphor for the Jews ourselves.

I also see it as a story about assimilation, and the virtues of refusing to disappear into a host population’s dominant culture.

Dara Horn taught me there are two over-arching kinds of anti-Semitism: that of the Purim story, and that of the Hanukkah story.

In the Purim story, anti-Semites aspire to kill all the Jews for being Jewish. This was the anti-Semitism of the Holocaust as well. It didn’t matter how fully assimilated the Jews of Germany were; even those who renounced their Judaism entirely, married gentiles, attended church and brought Christmas trees into their homes were killed along with the most devout members of their own tribe. The anti-Semites of the Purim story regarded the Jews as a lesser race, an inferior species. To them, nothing we do or don’t do can mitigate the crime of our ethnicity.

In the Hanukkah story, anti-Semites aspire to keep the Jews from being Jewish. These anti-Semites are willing to spare the Jews who are willing to renounce their Judaism.

Lucky us: throughout this past year especially, we have to contend with both in spades.

Throughout the Middle East, the Purim anti-Semites have done their best to take us out. Jihadists dream of a Judenrein future where an Islamist caliphate has been restored and Jews are once again expelled, murdered or subjugated throughout the region. Hamas apologists who insist the October 7th massacre was a response to “the occupation” of Gaza either don’t know or conveniently ignore the fact that massacres of Jews by Arabs, of exactly the same caliber of brutality, went on for decades even before Israel won statehood. Hamas’ charter calls for the genocide of Jews everywhere — not Zionists, not Israelis, but Jews worldwide.

Meanwhile, at home, so many of us are experiencing an overwhelming desire to hide. Many of our progressive peers seem to believe they can win social acceptance from their cohort by turning against the Jewish nation, identifying as anti-Zionists.

And aside from the safety measures I’ve touched on several times in this column — hiding Jewish signifiers like jewelry and mezuzahs and kippot in public — there are countless other opportunities to surrender to Jewish erasure, and I’ve been thinking of those a lot lately.

The terrible truth is that even I am not immune to these impulses. As out and loud and proud as I am — doing Jewish advocacy full-time, nailing my Zionist flag to the mast on social media, running around in a t-shirt that says I’m that Jew — there are situations that give me pause all the time.

For instance, a friend of mine asked me to write a letter on her behalf in the context of a legal dispute. She was having a conflict with her tenant and asked me to provide a local judge with a character reference during the weeks before her court date.

Fam, I started off by saying that I knew K. from synagogue. And then I deleted it. I invented another context for our acquaintance. Because what if the judge harbored a negative, stereotype-driven idea of Jews as evil landlords?

When I checked into my local clinic for a colonoscopy, I have the most vivid memory of feeling relieved that medical protocol demanded the removal of all jewelry before surgery. In a situation where I felt wildly vulnerable, dependent on the goodwill of strangers, it was a relief not to face the choice of whether to arrive with Jewish signifiers.

Likewise, I’ve dropped my dog tags inside my shirt in situations where something vital is at stake — while begging an airline attendant for some accommodation, for instance.

And during my daughter’s college application process, I secretly worried about whether Jewish references in her essays and her list of extra-curricular activities would hurt her chances of acceptance. I did not and would not suggest she omit them. But the temptation was there.

I never used to feel this way. I didn’t grow up making these calculations. It wasn’t that I never experienced anti-Semitism; it happened a handful of times. In high school, for instance, my best friend was told by her grandmother that she couldn’t bring me to their country club.

“You know I have nothing against your cute little Jewish friend,” the old woman told her. “I like her just fine and she’s welcome at the house. But we can’t take her to the club.”

In my presence, people who didn’t realize I was Jewish occasionally tossed around expressions like “jewing down the price” and once a man refused to believe I was Jewish because I didn’t have what he considered a Jewish nose.

But I don’t have a single memory of wavering over whether to reveal my identity, in any situation.

And now, rarely a day goes by that I don’t hear other Jews mention some aspect of this dilemma.

A woman I met recently told me: “I don’t lead with my Jewishness. I identify as Jewish and would never deny it if asked. But as a public-facing person, running a business, dependent on the goodwill of potential customers, I don’t advertise it either.”

Another woman shared her fear, just this week, of revealing her Jewishness to an Uber driver.

I have heard countless other parents waver over whether to encourage their children to hide their Judaism during any application process — to a college, graduate school, internship or job interview.

This fear is just a part of Jewish life now. Even in the U.S. at the tail end of 2024.

But Hanukkah reminds us to be Maccabees. Hanukkah reminds us not to hide.

Hanukkah’s theme song could be that Jewgirl anthem Burn by Ellie Goulding:

We, we don’t have to worry bout nothing

Cause we got the fire and we’re burning one hell of a something

They, they gonna see us from outer space, outer space

Light it up, like we’re the stars of the human race, human race…

We’ll be raising our hands, shining up to the sky

Cause we got the fire, fire, fire

Yeah, we got the fire, fire, fire

And we’re gonna let it burn, burn, burn, burn…

I’ll be back with you in 2025, fam. In the meantime, I’m sending all of you my warmest and best wishes for the goyische new year.

May your Jewish Christmas include the most delicious Chinese takeout and the best holiday movie.

Happy, happy Hanukkah.

Am Yisrael Chai.