Chanukah Is Relevant for Everyone – but Not in the Way You Might Think |
Of all the holidays on the Jewish calendar, Chanukah, which began last Sunday evening, has always been one of my favorites. Even when I was younger and far less observant, I appreciated the holiday's well-known rituals and customs: lighting the menorah, spinning the dreidel, eating potato latkes, and so forth. My given Hebrew name -- "Maccabee," because Judah Maccabee was nicknamed "the hammer" -- is also synonymous with the hero of the holiday's story.
Because of the holiday's timing and the general desire by corporate America and elected officials to include Jewish Americans in annual Christmastime festivity, Chanukah is the most commercialized and among the most frequently discussed of all the Jewish holidays. The commercialization of Chanukah is anodyne, if a bit of a distraction. More problematic is the time-tested tradition of American politicians distorting the holiday's meaning -- often, for self-serving reasons.
For as long as I can remember, liberal politicians have taken pains to invoke the imagery of the Chanukah menorah's light in order to pontificate about abstract universalist principles such as justice and freedom and, as former President Barack Obama put it two years after leaving office, about an occasion to "recommit ourselves to building a brighter future for our families, our communities, and our world." Sometimes they even get the most basic facts of the Chanukah story egregiously wrong, as the Jewish then-second gentleman, Doug Emhoff,........