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artificialsatelliteWell, it's. Uh.
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah and eleven people were killed in a shooting in Australia at a Hanukkah celebration.
I'm upset, but I also feel strangely numb. When something like this happens there is a sense of almost... "Well, there it is." We have been warning people and asking them to take this stuff seriously and then at Bondi Beach, in Manchester, in Boulder, we're proven right and everyone tells us how sorry they are and how unacceptable it is and then they don't do anything about it, or else we're told how it's tragic but understandable because, you know, Zionism, and then in a day or two it's forgotten again until the next one.
The image of the Hanukkah menorah is one of light in the darkness, and a light that grows with each successive night, reminding us that we are Jews and will maintain our Jewishness even in the face of terrible odds. The miracle of the oil is the story that most people who are not Jewish know about Hanukkah, and it is a lovely story. But the festival of Hanukkah primarily commemorates a military victory over the Greeks, who ruled over us and tried to force us to assimilate to their culture and religion.*
Over two thousand years on from this, we're still here, and we are still Jews, and we will continue to be.
It just feels like no matter what I could say about all this it wouldn't be enough.
*It is more complicated than this, but this is the gist of it. I am aware of the criticisms of the Maccabees. Now is not the time, I think.
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah and eleven people were killed in a shooting in Australia at a Hanukkah celebration.
I'm upset, but I also feel strangely numb. When something like this happens there is a sense of almost... "Well, there it is." We have been warning people and asking them to take this stuff seriously and then at Bondi Beach, in Manchester, in Boulder, we're proven right and everyone tells us how sorry they are and how unacceptable it is and then they don't do anything about it, or else we're told how it's tragic but understandable because, you know, Zionism, and then in a day or two it's forgotten again until the next one.
The image of the Hanukkah menorah is one of light in the darkness, and a light that grows with each successive night, reminding us that we are Jews and will maintain our Jewishness even in the face of terrible odds. The miracle of the oil is the story that most people who are not Jewish know about Hanukkah, and it is a lovely story. But the festival of Hanukkah primarily commemorates a military victory over the Greeks, who ruled over us and tried to force us to assimilate to their culture and religion.*
Over two thousand years on from this, we're still here, and we are still Jews, and we will continue to be.
It just feels like no matter what I could say about all this it wouldn't be enough.
*It is more complicated than this, but this is the gist of it. I am aware of the criticisms of the Maccabees. Now is not the time, I think.