On Sunday, the first night of Hanukkah, a father-son terror team hit Australia’s Bondi Beach and massacred innocents at a family event celebrating the Jewish festival. 

Ever since, well-intentioned commentators have proclaimed their anguish that this holiday of “light,” of “togetherness,” of universal values everyone can appreciate, could be marred in such a way.

But that vision of Hanukkah is a lie — and it’s not how we should be honoring the lives brutally taken.

Hanukkah is not a festival of vague illumination or seasonal warmth.

It is not about universalism. Bondi should have taught us that.

The story of Hanukkah is about Jews who refused — violently, unapologetically, and at great cost — to stop being Jews.

In our generation, we are fighting that same battle. 

The Hanukkah story is not one of peaceful coexistence interrupted by misunderstanding, but of a foreign empire that demanded Jews abandon Jewish law, Jewish practice and Jewish identity. 

Assimilation was not optional under the rule of the Seleucid Empire; it was compulsory.

The Maccabees did not

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