OPINION:
There has never been a time in history when Jewish survival was assured.
Over the course of three millennia, Jews have been attacked or oppressed by Egyptians, Philistines, Babylonians, Seleucids, Romans, the Inquisition, Russians under both the czars and the communists, Nazis, Muslims (starting in the time of Muhammad) and now, right-wing antisemites, members of the Tucker Carlson Bund.
God told us we would always be a people apart and endure persecution. History has borne witness to that.
Today, antisemitism is overwhelmingly on the left. In November, Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim Marxist, was elected mayor of New York City, the second most populous Jewish city in the world. The mayor-elect refuses to repudiate the expression “globalize the intifada,” which amounts to a call for a second Holocaust.
Antisemitism, thinly disguised as anti-Zionism, infests academia, including colleges and universities whose major funding comes from Jewish donors.
It’s making headway on the right too.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts refuses to dissociate the foundation (once the premier conservative think tank) from lunatic-fringe podcaster Tucker Carlson, who says Zionism is an attack on Western civilization and has provided a forum for Hitler fanboy Nick Fuentes.
According to the FBI, antisemitism accounts for nearly 70% of religion-based hate crimes in the United States. Jews are 2.2% of the U.S. population.
The Hanukkah story isn’t just about dreidels and latkes. The Syrian Greeks, or Seleucids, conquered the land of Israel in the second century BCE. They didn’t hate Jews. They hated Judaism. They wanted all their subjects to be like them, including worshipping the same gods.
The revolt started when an elderly Jewish priest named Mattathias killed a renegade Jew who had set up an altar to Zeus. Shouting, “All who are for God, follow me,” Mattathias led his followers — including his five sons, who came to be known as Maccabees — in a guerrilla campaign that eventually resulted in the liberation of Israel and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem.
In part, the Maccabees’ war pitted Jewish Hellenizers, who loved Greek culture, against Jews who were loyal to God. This mirrors today’s struggle between Zionists and anti-Zionist Jews, including Jewish Voice for Peace. The survival of their people is far less important to leftist Jews than the triumph of their twisted ideology.
Anti-Israel demonstrators call for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” — that is, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. Like the so-called Palestinians, Jewish leftists oppose the existence of Israel. Once Israel is eliminated, there will be eternal peace in the Middle East, they say — not to mention the scrupulous adherence to human rights that characterizes Muslim societies.
Enter the modern Maccabees. If I had to sum up the Hanukkah story in one word, it would be “resist.” Coexistence with evil is impossible. Sooner or later, we all have to take sides.
The successors to Mattathias and his sons include Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, who has spoken out forcefully against anti-Israel sentiment in his party, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed an executive order declaring the Muslim Brotherhood and Council on American-Islamic Relations domestic terrorist organizations.
They also include groups such as the Zionist Organization of America and bloggers, podcasters and sundry activists, like my friend Rabbi Cary Kozberg, who runs an online forum, coincidentally called the Mattathias Project, with regular speakers.
Anyone can join this guerrilla army, even if their only contribution is reposting articles, writing letters to the editor, holding a sign at a rally or placing a menorah in their window for the eight days of Hanukkah, whether they are Jewish or not.
Resistance doesn’t always end in victory; witness the fall of Masada in the First Jewish Roman War and the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. Yet what is the alternative?
In May 1940, when Britain faced an imminent German invasion, Winston Churchill said, “Nations that go down fighting rise again, but those who surrender tamely are finished.”
Another world war is raging. On one side is a death cult that wants everyone to think like it, act like it and worship its god. It’s willing to wash the world in blood to achieve that end.
On the other side are Christians and Jews who believe in religious liberty and the protection of innocent life.
May the light of the menorah illuminate the path before us.
• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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