The Real and Urgent Meaning of Chanukah

The lesson of Chanukah is to be extra-weary of overly assimilated Jews — and also to not write them off.

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You might be surprised to learn that Chanukah is a minor holiday in Judaism, far less significant than the High Holidays, Purim, Shavuot, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah.

In Israel, Chanukah is quite casually marked by candle-lighting, as well as eating sufganiyot (jelly donuts) and sfinge (Moroccan donuts). Modest family and social gatherings take place, and the only gift kids typically receive is a break from school.

However, parents still work, and since the non-Jewish New Year (January 1st) is not a holiday in Israel, it’s unusual for families to plan vacations around this time of year. Chanukah in the Jewish state is, thus, pretty unspectacular — as it should be.

Ironically, though, Chanukah outside of Israel has become over-inflated for the reason it became a holiday in the first place: assimilation. The final victory of Chanukah was set in motion by resistance to Hellenism’s growing encroachment. In many ways, the Maccabees were in greater conflict with their fellow Hellenizing Jews than with the ancient Greeks themselves.

“The arrogant universalism in Hellenism demanded that Jews give up their distinctive religious ways for the greater good,” wrote Rabbi Irving Greenberg.¹

In the Second Book of Maccabees, a Jewish mother of seven was arrested with her sons for defying the decree of an ancient Syrian monarch to transgress the Torah’s commandments. Refusing to capitulate to the king’s demands, the sons were tortured to death one by one. Instead of persuading them to desist, their mother encouraged them to die for their Jewish beliefs.²

Yet the very holiday that marks a stark warning against over-assimilating is celebrated by many Jews around the world in some of the most assimilated ways — attributed, at least in part, to the pressure of making Chanukah an “exciting alternative” to Christmas.

According to one study, researchers found that, in U.S. counties with fewer Jews than Christians, sales of Jewish products in December saw a bigger jump than in counties where the Jewish population was larger — suggesting that the greater visibility of Christmas drove up Chanukah spending.³

To understand why Chanukah has become the Jewish version of Christmas, we have to understand the origins of Reform Judaism, which are traced back to the French Revolution, when European Jews were, for the first time, recognized as citizens of the countries in which they lived.⁴

Ghettos and special badges were abolished, and Jews could settle where they pleased, dress as they liked, and pursue professions they desired. Many Jews lived outside of Jewish districts, learned the local languages, and sent their children to public schools and universities.

But in 1815, after Napoleon’s defeat, Jews lost many rights in many countries. Some of them became Christians to retain certain rights, while other Jews realized that many of these sociopolitical changes took place not because Jews disliked Judaism, but to obtain better treatment. Many rabbis believed the prescription was to force Jews to keep away from Christians and give up public education, but this approach didn’t work.

Leopold Zunz, a Jewish German who founded academic Judaic Studies, proposed that Jews study their history and learn about the great achievements of their past. While Zunz was implementing his ideas, a movement began to make religious services better understood, by incorporating music and local languages. However, these changes led to battles with various rabbis, who urged the German government to close the test synagogue.

Shortly after the closing, Rabbi Abraham Geiger suggested that observance might also be changed to appeal to modern people. Geiger, a skilled scholar in both the Hebrew Bible and German studies, investigated Jewish history and discovered that Jewish life had continually changed. Every now and then, old practices were changed and new ones introduced, resulting in Jewish cultures that were quite different from those hundreds, if not thousands, of years prior.

More than anything, Geiger noticed that these changes often made it easier for Jews to live in accordance with Judaism. He concluded that this process of change needed to continue to make Judaism attractive to Jews, so he met with other rabbis in Germany, and changes were made.

Hence, the roots of Reform Judaism were born in Germany where, between 1810 and 1820, congregations instituted fundamental changes to traditional Jewish practices and beliefs, such as mixed-gender seating, the use of German in services, single-day observance of festivals, and the use of a cantor or choir.

In the mid-1800s, Reform Judaism crossed the Atlantic Ocean as Jewish Germans immigrated to America, rapidly becoming a dominant movement among American Jewry.

Today, Reform Judaism is the largest of Jewish streams in the United States. It has embraced popular liberal trends like social action, environmentalism, and the welcoming of members of LGBTQ and interfaith families.

But Jack Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, wonders how long the movement can sustain itself by championing autonomy without requiring any imperatives. He believes “the problem is when assumptions are made that Judaism and the wider American culture are part of one seamless fabric and that there are no tensions between the two.”

Wertheimer sees Judaism as “countercultural in some ways,” and that if we don’t emphasize the differences, “the essence of Jewish life will be distorted or lost.”⁵

In fact, Jewish life is already being distorted and lost. According to a recent survey on Jewish Americans, if one excludes and looks only at non-Orthodox Jews who have married since 2010, seven in 10 Jews are intermarried. And, among Jews who married since the beginning of 2010, 61 percent have a non-Jewish spouse, compared with 18 percent of Jews who wed before 1980.

The issue with intermarriage is not intermarriage in and of itself. People should feel comfortable marrying whomever they want. The issue with intermarriage is the outcome — rather than the intention — and the outcome is that many intermarried couples do not raise Jewish kids. In other words: death by assimilation.

“The Jewish People are a distinct culture, a civilization. Though we can integrate into the wider world, we must never do so at the expense of our own culture. There are several instances where Jews have prized non-Jewish culture over our own,” said Ben Freeman, a Jewish author and educator.

What’s more, some leaders within the Reform Judaism movement have been overly critical of Israel and Zionism. A few weeks ago, after the Israel-Hamas war broke out, one U.S. Jewish community leader said: “We need to hold space in the Jewish community for Jews who are struggling in this moment because they don’t support Israel.”⁶

A Jewish writer, Dylan Saba, celebrated Hamas’ heinous attacks on October 7th, writing:

“Glory to the resistance and the people of Palestine. Though I fear for my family in Gaza and am already mourning the dead, l could not be more proud of my people who continue to demonstrate unthinkable bravery in their struggle for liberation.”⁷

Rivkah Brown, a Jewish journalist for the UK’s Novara Media, posted on X that the assault should mark “a day of celebration for supporters of democracy and human rights worldwide, as the people of Gaza break out of their open-air prison.”⁸

The organization IfNotNow said of the murdered Israelis in the October 7th terror attack: “Their blood is on the hands of the Israeli government, the U.S. government which funds and excuses their recklessness, and every international leader who continues to turn a blind eye to decades of Palestinian oppression.”

On a digital platform for members of the Rabbinical Assembly, someone recently wrote: “Peter Beinart (who has explicitly opposed the existence of a Jewish state) comes across to me as one of the most passionate advocates I know for a politically realistic, morally grounded Zionism. Those of you who reject him are simply uninformed about the greater political context we live in, and the great moral weight of Israel’s actions.”

For years, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum has repeatedly using her pulpit at New York’s Beit Simchat Torah — the world’s largest LGBTQ congregation — to demonize Israel. During Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” in Gaza in 2014, Kleinbaum read a list of Palestinian and Israeli casualties, including the names of Hamas terrorists, in special prayers during her synagogue’s services.⁹

Her romantic partner and fellow Jew is Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who said that American Jews are part of a U.S. “ownership class” that wants to take opportunities away from others.

In 2020, two ultra-famous Jewish comedians, Marc Maron and Seth Rogen, had a go at American and Israeli Jews on Maron’s popular podcast, with Rogen saying: “Israel is ridiculous, antiquated, and based on ethnic cleansing.”¹⁰

Gabor Maté, a famous Hungarian-Canadian psychologist and Holocaust survivor, is awkwardly featured in interviews about Israel as if he’s a subject-matter expert. In reality, media outlets that want to push a certain Israeli narrative invite him for interviews, where he’s baselessly claimed that Israel was founded on massacres and the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands.

Norman Finkelstein is a notorious Jewish American academic who has berated Jews over their “crocodile tears” for Israel, declaring:

“My late father was in Auschwitz. My late mother was in Majdanek concentration camp, and it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians.”¹¹

If anything is clear, it’s that these self-hating Jews have tremendously deep wounds — but to project their hurt on Israel and the Jewish People is dangerously misguided and profusely unbecoming.

We all have different “needs” when it comes to Judaism and Israel, but implicit and explicit hatred of one’s own people should never be permissible in any community or by any person, no matter who they are or how long they’ve been around.

To be sure, Judaism is very clear about Jew-on-Jew antagonism:

Let there be no hope for informers and may all wickedness instantly perish; may all the enemies of Your people be swiftly cut off, and may You quickly uproot, crush, rout and subdue the insolent, speedily in our days. Blessed are You, Lord, Crusher of enemies and Subduer of the insolent.

That’s why, as we commemorate Chanukah against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war — which some people seem to be forgetting that Hamas started — I think it’s critical that we remember the accuracy and urgency of this holiday. Specifically, the Maccabean Jews who fought off Hellenism to prevent the Jewish People from dying an assimilated death.

I am not suggesting that Jews should suddenly dismantle their modern shackles and return to our “ultra-Orthodox” roots. However, many of us Jews (my former self included) have over-indexed on assimilation, intoxicated by cosmopolitanism, materialism, and consumerism — at the expense of Judaism, Jewishness, and Zionism.

As a matter of fact, ancient rabbis deepened Judaism to cope with and respond to a dynamic civilization. Judaism consequently rose to new heights of competence and developed the ability to swim in the sea of assimilation.

“Properly done, acculturation (modernizing) is an alternative to assimilation,” according to Rabbi Irving Greenberg. “Since no one group can offer all the answers for all the life situations or cope with all the options in society, it becomes very important to form coalitions to cover the field, to correct one another, to give Jewry the strength of variety and numbers.”

The lesson of Chanukah, therefore, is not to write off overly assimilated Jews. Indeed, the Maccabee miracle was based on a coalition of traditional, acculturating, and assimilating Jews.

“What is needed is a coalition and symbiosis of traditional Jews, modernizing Jews, and those assimilating Jews who can still be reached,” wrote Rabbi Greenberg. “The real task is to begin the ‘guerrilla warfare’ that weans people from their excessive absorption in the status quo and liberates them for authentic Jewish existence.”

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1. “Defining Hanukkah: Assimilation.” My Jewish Learning. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/defining-hanukkah-assimilation.

2. “Hannah Mother of Seven.” Jewish Women’s Archive. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hannah-mother-of-seven.

3. “How Hanukkah Became ‘Jewish Christmas.’” JSTOR. https://daily.jstor.org/how-hanukkah-became-jewish-christmas.

4. “Reform Judaism: The Tenets of Reform Judaism.” Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-tenets-of-reform-judaism.

5. Rosenblatt, Gary. “U.S. Judaism Today, Striving To Stay Relevant.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency. September 20, 2018, https://www.jta.org/2018/09/20/ny/u-s-judaism-today-striving-to-stay-relevant.

6. “Replace American Jewish Communal Leadership.” Tablet. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/replace-american-jewish-communal-leadership-adl.

7. Dylan Saba on X (Twitter)

8. “US Jewish progressives are grappling with how to respond to Hamas’ terror onslaught.” The Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-jewish-progressives-are-grappling-with-how-to-respond-to-hamas-terror-onslaught.

9. “When the Jew-bashers are Jews.” JNS. https://www.jns.org/when-the-jew-bashers-are-jews.

10. “Seth Rogen says Israel ‘doesn’t make sense’ in interview with Marc Maron.” The Jerusalem Post. https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/seth-rogen-says-israel-doesnt-make-sense-in-interview-with-marc-maron-636691.

11. “Norman Finkelstein’s Long Crusade.” Norman Finkelstein. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/norman-finkelstein-israel-palestine-scholar-profile.html.