A Joyous Holiday Noise

Hanukkah seems almost anticlimactic this year. There’s been so much talk in recent weeks about the blurring of holiday messages and the proper place of religion in the public square that making a joyous holiday noise right now seems, well, a bit rude. Now isn’t the time to make trouble.

In a way, though, that’s just the point of Hanukkah. The holiday celebrates a famous refusal to go along and stay out of trouble. When the Maccabees raised the banner of Judean revolt against the Syrian-Greek overlords and their Hellenizing Jewish collaborators, they knew they were making life uncomfortable for the majority of their countrymen. Most of their fellow Jews might have preferred to let the mad emperor Antiochus IV rage on for a few years, knowing that his time would pass and that life in Judea would some day return to normal. The Maccabees believed the price to be paid while waiting was unacceptably high, and so they fought.

Readers will see an obvious parallel between those times and these. We can think of a few parallels ourselves — cutting in as many directions as Jews have opinions. The common denominator, and the most important, is this: Hanukkah is, above all, a time to celebrate who we are, and to insist on our right to be ourselves.

In that holiday spirit, we wish our readers, depending on their leanings, a very happy Hanukkah, a joyous holiday season and, to those who prefer, a merry Christmas.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO