While Sydney’s Jews bury their dead, I’ve noticed an increasing number of photos of Jews in Europe and America holding Hanukkah candle lightings in support of Palestine. To be clear from the onset: I do not believe there’s anything wrong with people marching for Palestine even if I wish they were marching for Israel and Palestine, two States for two Peoples. I do, however, believe it’s time to clarify that those who commemorate a holiday that, as Matt Bar points out, literally marks a Jewish war of independence in Judea by asserting Judea belongs to another people are no longer part of the Jewish People. I believe this clarity is helpful as we discuss our future as an Am Olam – a people operating in the world, of the world, yet rooted in our ancient land – and I will endeavor here to explain why.

First, an additional clarification: Hanukkah has always been a problematic holiday from a Jewish perspective. As Yotam Evyatar notes in his piece in Prophecy, the story many of us learned about the Maccabees and the miracle of the long-lasting oil was embellished by Rabbinic Judaism centuries after the Hasmonean-led war for independence against the Seleucids in the Land of Israel. The Sages probably created the holiday on the foundations of an earlier Independence Day celebration to justify its preservation in Exile, diverting the nationalist fervor it undoubtedly........

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