CHANUKAH, ANTISEMITISM, AND THE COURAGE TO ENDURE

On Erev Yom Kippur 2024, I spoke from the bimah about the rising tide of antisemitism.

Some found that talk persuasive. Others did not. There were those who felt I was being alarmist—that people were simply angry about the war, that this would pass as it always had.

Almost a year and a half later, on this second day of Chanukah 2025, I hope there is no longer any doubt that what I described then as a rising tide has become a tsunami. Antisemitism today is neither exaggerated nor imagined. It is not confined to one country or ideology. It is global. It is consuming both the left and the right. And it is becoming increasingly lethal.

Sunday’s attack on the Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach has taken its place as yet another horrific link in a chain of antisemitic violence that has reached unprecedented levels in modern times. Assaults on Jews and Jewish institutions now occur weekly—often daily. Jewish holidays, moments meant for gathering and celebration, have become times of mourning. Simchat Torah will forever recall October 7. Yom Kippur will now bear the memory of Jews murdered at their synagogue in Manchester. Chanukah will be marked by the attack at Bondi Beach.

Even beyond these deadly assaults, the pace of targeting has accelerated. On the very day of the Bondi Beach attack, a Jewish home in California decorated for Chanukah was riddled with more than twenty bullets as the attackers shouted, “Fuck the Jews.” Just last night, Jews leaving a Chabad Chanukah gathering were verbally and physically assaulted on a New York City subway. All of this within forty-eight hours.

In moments like these, it is tempting to reach for comforting religious language or easy moral lessons. Some Jewish leaders remind us of Chanukah as a story of unity—light triumphing over darkness, harmony overcoming adversity. Be brave and united, they urge, like Judah Maccabee and his family in the face of evil.

As collective mythology, these messages are understandable. But as I have always tried to do, I believe the lessons of Chanukah must be grounded in the history we actually know.

Historically, Chanukah was not a story of unity. It was born of a civil war among Jews—of deep conflicts over assimilation, Hellenistic influence, power, authority, and competing visions of Jewish life in the Land of Israel. Jews fought Jews. The events behind Chanukah were messy, violent, and morally complicated. It was no tale of consensus or harmony.

And yet—despite foreign rule, internal division, cultural pressure, and bloodshed—the Jews survived.

Our earliest sources explain the eight-day celebration in practical and historical terms. The story of the miraculous oil is just that—a story—one that later explained how a Temple purification ritual became the Jewish Festival of Light. In truth, no one really knows how we came to mark this moment as our own solstice celebration. What our earliest source—the First Book of Maccabees—reports is that the Maccabees chose the date because it marked the anniversary of the Temple’s desecration, carried out through the observance of a pagan winter festival. In doing so, they deliberately reclaimed the season—Judaizing an existing moment in the calendar—to create a celebration of Jewish survival and victory on their own terms. As time passed, Chanukah came to be interpreted as our very own Festival of Light during the season of darkness.

And over time, darkness and light became the symbols of the Maccabees' resolve—and of Jewish survival itself.

Those who saw this meaning in our Festival of Lights were not naively optimistic. Nor did they believe that a victory could come simply through unity. What they bequeathed to us was a ritual reminder that darkness is real, but so is the return to light, to hope. And Jewish endurance demands hope.

Hope, in Jewish history, is not naïve optimism. It is a discipline—an insistence on continuing even when circumstances argue otherwise. It is one of the essential ingredients of Jewish resilience.

That lesson matters now.

Many Jews today are experiencing two painful fears at once. We are frightened by the resurgence of antisemitism. And we are convinced that Jewish disunity—our fragmentation and inability to tolerate disagreement—is weakening our response. The Chanukah story reminds us that this tension is not new.

Chanukah does not teach that Jews survive by agreeing with one another. Jewish history suggests the opposite. Jews have survived conquest, exile, persecution, and genocide—including during periods of profound internal division. What sustained us was not unanimity, but resilience: the refusal to disappear, and the willingness to hold onto hope even when the future looked impossibly dark.

Chanukah offers no promise of an easy future. It offers something harder and more honest: the knowledge that we have endured before—sometimes under far worse conditions—and that continuing—choosing light over surrender—is itself an act of courage.

Jewish tradition urges us to celebrate whenever we can. Even now—especially now—we must.

I wish you and yours a Chanukah of light, resilience, and enduring hope.