Chag Chanukkah Sameach! It’s that time of year again; menorah drippings on the counter, latkes stinking up your house, eating oily food, and gambling chocolate. Chanukkah fell particularly early this year. It came the same weekend as Thanksgiving for Americans, and for students, it lines up with the end of the semester and the beginning of the winter break. All of this means a lot of family time, and like all situations involving too many Jews in too small a space, a lot of intense conversations. This year like so many years before, one of these uncomfortable subjects is likely to be Israel. While we may desire to reject our Jewish friends and family who have rejected Israel, it may be worth taking a moment to think about why some young, progressive Jews are turning away from Israel. Chanukkah provides us with an excellent opportunity to understand what is happening right now.
Before I begin, I want to say that while I talk about Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism as though they are two separate things or capable of being genuinely separated from each other very often in my advocacy work, this isn’t really true. Israel is a fundamental part of Judaism. All you have to do is recite the Shema prayer, the central prayer of Judaism, to know this is the case. This doesn’t by any means suggest that Israeli governmental policy is a part of Judaism, but rejecting the existence of the State of Israel, is rejecting a fundamental part of Jewish identity.
There is an intense desire among so many young Jews to belong and be accepted in progressive circles. A lifetime of being the kid who missed some random days of school in the fall for reasons that are hard to explain, not having Santa, and having a weird Torah party in middle school, makes being part of the mainstream appear very desirable. Today, this belonging comes at the price of rejecting Israel.
To understand how all of this relates to Chanukkah, we need to talk about Passover. Passover has always been my favourite holiday. I love sitting around the table with my family, reading the Haggadah and waiting four hours to eat. My understanding and appreciation for Passover changed when I learned to look at the Haggadah as a text of revolution. Very little of the Haggadah is engaged in telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Instead, it focuses on how the Rabbis sat up all night in conversation. This conversation was happening during the Hellenist occupation of Jerusalem. The Rabbis were discussing the Exodus as a framework for the revolution that the Maccabees would mount in the Chanukkah story.
Under Hellenist occupation, Jews were allowed to be part of Hellenist society. They could participate in sports and study, so long as they reversed their circumcisions, and gave up speaking Hebrew and practicing Judaism. This caused a deep division in Jewish society. Some felt that this was a price worth paying to belong. They were tired of always being different and the inherent lack of safety that accompanied that, and were willing to give up their Jewish identity for the sake of being part of Hellenist society. The Maccabees disagreed and mounted an underdog revolution.
This story of division in the Jewish community about whether to give up part or all of our Judaism to belong has repeated itself time and again. We saw it in Soviet Russia when Jews were admitted to the Bolshevik party and then required to shut down their community organizations. We are seeing it again on college campuses today, where Jews are required to reject Israel. We have developed a long history of dismissing Jewish culture, favouring the safety and security of being accepted by the majority, except that it’s not really acceptance.
For all of Jewish history, being different has been dangerous. Blending provides an illusion of security from the outside, but a short walk down the history aisle will refute this presumption with fervour. From Hellenist-occupied Judea to 1930s Germany to Soviet Russia, blending has consistently proved insufficient to save the Jewish people from rejection and persecution. Why should this time be any different?
There is no winning when we give up part of our identity to be part of the in-group. But, when we give up part of our identity, in this case, our connection with Israel, for the sake of belonging, we are absolutely losing. We are losing because we are cheating ourselves and future generations out of our culture and heritage. We are losing because we are not pushing back against those who do not want to accept as we are.
The rejection of Israel is the price of belonging in progressive circles. And it’s a really high price to pay. Giving up our connection to a Jewish homeland means rejecting Judaism’s fundamental connection to that piece of land. Further, it requires denying that the safety and security we, as Jewish people alive today, benefit from is linked directly to the world’s recognition of the need for a place for Jews to exist collectively in the wake of the Holocaust.
I would caution anyone grappling with this decision now that being Jewish in progressive circles is a pay-to-play system. It starts with Israel, but next, it’s waving off violence against Orthodox communities during Chanukkah because they have been moving into formerly low-income neighbourhoods; then it will be your kippah, and then it will be everything else. Because if the price of entry is the denial of a fundamental part of who you are, then it was a price designed to deter you from paying it. Ask yourself why.
As we come to the end of Chanukkah and approach the rest of the holiday season, address your family and friends who have rejected Israel with empathy, and understand that they want to belong. Encourage them to embrace being different. Encourage them to find circles within and outside the Jewish community, where they are not required to give up an essential part of their Jewish identity. Help them understand that the price of belonging is simply not a price worth paying.
Want to learn more about the rising tide of Antisemitism? Have questions about Antisemitism in Canada and on Canadian university campuses? Register here for the Toronto Jewish Film Festival’s Shine a Light on Antisemitism program. The film will be available today through Sunday. Please join us at 7pm EST on Sunday for a panel featuring the Honourable Irwin Cotler, one of my brilliant colleagues at Windsor Law, and myself.