Many readers may be aware that it is currently the holiday of Chanukkah. And maybe you know that during this holiday, the Jewish people light a menorah (candelabra) with eight candles to remind us of a miracle: in ancient times, there was only enough oil to light a lamp for one day, but the oil lasted for eight days. But why was there so little oil left over? Why was the holy temple destroyed? The Syrians forced the Jewish people to accept their Hellenistic beliefs, and worship pagan idols. A small band of Jewish rebels, known as the Maccabees (Hammers), fled from the Syrians, and hid in the hills. Against all odds, the Jews defeated the Syrian army, and rededicated, or sanctified their temple. Chanukkah translates to dedication.
The Chanukkah story is not an outlier. Throughout the entirety of recorded history, there have been countless attempts to wipe out the Jewish people. It is told that King Louis XIV asked Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, to provide evidence of miracles. His response was simple: the Jews. As all other civilizations come and go, the Jews somehow continue. Nevertheless we persisted, as the saying goes. This story may be apocryphal, but it conveys an important lesson: in every generation, there are attempts to exterminate the Jews, yet this scrappy minority survived. Indeed, many Jewish holidays can be summed up with some humor: they tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat.
In every generation, different rationales are put forward for why the Jews cannot be accepted: they practice heretical beliefs (monotheism), they reject the true religion (polytheism), they follow laws without reason (chok), they committed deicide (Jesus), they spread disease (the Black Death), they were infidels (Islam), they engaged in harmful practices (usury), they refuse to convert (Inquisition), the holy land belongs to us (multiple crusades), they don't belong (multiple expulsions), they do not belong (pogroms), they cause struggles (Nazis), and so on. The history of civilization can be written based on whatever the elite society of the day thinks about the Jewish people. As Justice Scalia reminded us, the Holocaust "happened in one of the most educated, most progressive, most cultured countries in the world."
