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Lighting the way from Chanukah 5785 to 2025

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This past December was unusual, with Chanukah coming later in the year and coinciding with Christmas when many members of the community were well into their summer holidays. In Cape Town, South African Jews celebrated by lighting chanukiahs on the beach, while the Sea Point promenade was adorned with tinsel and multi-coloured lights.

Such a scene would have infuriated Christopher Hitchens, who was a member of the New Atheists, a group of public intellectuals known for their caustic and derisive approach to religion. In 2007, the late Hitchens penned an article titled “Bah, Chanukah”, where he bitterly criticised public displays of Christmas and even more so, Chanukah. As an atheist, he claimed to be upset that the Maccabees had won. Hitchens said he supported the Hellenists, the Greek-influenced Jews who, in his words, “weaned many people away from the sacrifices, the circumcisions, the belief in a special relationship with G-d, and the other reactionary manifestations of an ancient and cruel faith”. But Hitchens went further than this, claiming that “when Judaism repudiated Athens for Jerusalem, the development of the whole of humanity was terribly retarded”.

The whole of humanity? This might seem like a bit much. After all, the most one could criticise Chanukah for is an extra eight days of excuses to eat fattening donuts and latkes. In fact, Hitchens made a wider point: the miracle of Chanukah preserved Judaism at a time when there were no other widely recognised monotheistic religions in the near east.

The events surrounding the festival created the political and religious context for the birth of Jesus and the emergence of Christianity. In Hitchens’ words, “to celebrate Hanukkah is to celebrate not just the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness but also the accidental birth of Judaism’s bastard child in the shape of Christianity”. As I said, caustic.

But he didn’t stop there. He then argued that Judaism and Christianity laid the theological groundwork for Islam, the world’s other major Abrahamic religion. For him, the events of Chanukah marked what could have been the erasure of monotheism from human history. Instead, because of the Maccabean revolt, billions now believe in a single G-d through a variety of faith traditions.

Hitchens’ arguments have many flaws, but a key one is that he refused to follow his reasoning to its logical conclusion. Though some forms of proto-atheism existed in Greek and Indian cultures, its real birth as a political and cultural force came from the clash between Christianity and the movements of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Were it not for Chanukah’s contribution to Christianity, there likely would have been no atheism. Perhaps Hitchens owed as much to Chanukah as the rest of us.

Unsurprisingly, Hitchens couldn’t be called a supporter of Israel. That doesn’t mean that he held any truck with antisemites. As Islamist terror has spread from attacks on Israel, through the wider Middle East, and into Europe and Africa, Hitchens saw the risk this posed for liberal democracy and minorities. He also called out fellow travellers on the left who were prepared to make excuses for such barbarism. Beyond its religious significance, Chanukah holds out the lessons of the defence of Jewish autonomy that anyone can get behind.

Former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy has pointed out that several years after the miracle of the oil, the Syrian king Antiochus sent an emissary to Simon, a leader of the Hasmoneans, complaining that cities, including Jerusalem, had been taken from him.

Simon replied, “We have never taken land away from other nations or confiscated anything that belonged to other people. On the contrary, we have simply taken back property that we inherited from our ancestors, land that had been unjustly taken away from us by our enemies at one time or another.”

The technology has changed, the enemies have changed, but the attempt to deny the Jewish people the right to live in their ancestral homeland remains the same.

Since 7 October, Jews have faced a surge of deadly antisemitism in Israel and around the world. Yet, in spite of this, the global Jewish community has stood united against its adversaries, making the same 2 000-year-old argument that Simon made to the Syrian king. In the process, we have discovered that we have many enemies. We have also learnt that we have many friends who have understood the role that Israel plays in a wider civilisational conflict.

These friends come from many backgrounds. Some turned out to be atheists, like British reporter Douglas Murray, some have even been Muslim, and some have just been members of the public who understand the simple justice of the moment. Of course, we can’t forget those who are our Christian allies. In this edition of the paper, you can read about Olga Meshoe Washington, a fearless and outspoken supporter of Israel who had deep ties to our community and who tragically and suddenly passed away on 6 January. We owe all these friends our gratitude.

In this war, we have already witnessed miracles and endured immense loss, much like the Jews who fought for our survival 2 000 years ago. As we move into 2025, we must remind ourselves that the fight isn’t yet over, and the hostages haven’t yet returned home. But with the light of Chanukah, we are also reminded that true peace and safety is possible. It’s a hope that matters not only for Jews but for the entire world.

  • Benji Shulman is a broadcaster on 101.9 ChaiFM.
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