8 days of celebrating Jewish self-determination in Israel

Let’s get this straight: the context of Hanukkah is Zionism.

Photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash

This week, we marked two historic events in the Jewish calendar. 

It has been two months since October 7, when we witnessed the deadliest attack on Jewish people in our homeland, and since the Holocaust. 

It was also the beginning of Hanukkah, when we commemorate the victory of the Jewish people in the uprising against Greek occupation. 

I have been thinking about Hanukkah a lot over the past few weeks. Not because I was so excited to light my menorah or lose some chocolate playing dreidel. Instead, I have been thinking about how every year we celebrate Jewish self-determination in our Indigenous homeland. I have been wondering whether, if the events of the Hanukkah story happened today, the world would stand with us or our oppressors. I thought that by now, the war would be over, and the world would have given its head a shake, and seen what is going on. That is not what is happening.

Instead, what I have witnessed is an attempt to recontextualize Hanukkah. I have seen individuals posting about it as being a team to call for ceasefire in Israel or a celebration of peace. We often talk about Hanukkah as being a “festival of light,” and in the very specific context of the menorah as a representation of the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days, this is true. But also in the spirit of “context,” that the world is currently so fixated on, the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days arose from the aftermath of the victory of the Maccabees over the Greek occupying forces who had seized control of Israel and were preventing the Jewish people from living as Jews. We are not celebrating peace, we are commemorating a successful victory for Jewish sovereignty in our Indigenous homeland. We are commemorating a war that we fought and won. To say that this holiday is about something else, is to recontextualize it for the purposes of convenience or political acceptance - effectively do exactly the opposite of what the Maccabees were fighting for. This year, more than any other year, I’m not going to do that.

When the Mayor of Calgary, Jyoti Godnek decided not to attend a public menorah lighting event at city hall on Thursday night because of the “Pro-Israel theme added” to the event this year, it demonstrated how little understanding or thought is given to Jewish holidays in Canada on a larger scale. Lighting a menorah, whether one is aware of it or not, has always been an unequivocally pro-Israel action. The only reason Hanukkah exists as a holiday is because of Jewish Indigeneity to the land of Israel, and because we are celebrating Jewish sovereignty in that land. This is not theoretical, but archeological. To decide not to attend a menorah lighting, because an association between Hanukkah and Israel is purportedly divisive is to fundamentally misunderstand not only the holiday, but the core tenets of Judaism. Israel is fundamental and inextricable from Judaism. This does not mean support for the Israeli government, but it does mean acknowledging the Indigeneity of the Jewish people and our right to exist freely as Jews in our homeland, if nowhere else.