Gets Real: Hanukkah different this year amid increased antisemitism

SEATTLE — This year, Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of lights, brings with it a different meaning given what is happening in the Middle East as war continues between Israel and Hamas.

“It’s not an accident that at the darkest time of year Judaism has this celebration of light, not only physical light but also figurative light, enlightenment, the light of hope, the light of God in our lives,” Rabbi Daniel Weiner of Temple De Hirsch Sinai, said. “Not only because we need light in all of its meaning at this kind of darkened period in our history, but in particular, the fact that there’s such an increase in antisemitism.”

Officials across the country have warned of an increase in antisemitism because of the war.

“There’s 100% correlation that I would even go so far to say is a causation,” Weiner said.

At least five Jewish organizations have received suspicious envelopes with white powder inside in Western Washington. A synagogue in Mercer Island was also vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti.

“To hold Jews throughout the world responsible for how people perceive what’s going on in Israel and to attack them as somehow representatives of Israel or global Jewery is the very definition of antisemitism,” Weiner said.

Despite these acts of hate, Weiner said the Jewish community is doubling down on their resolve.

“I think that many of us like the Maccabees, we are looking to both express our unqualified pride in who we are, but also our right to fight for our right to express our religious values and our traditions,” he said.

Weiner said those seeking to intimidate and cause fear will not have the final word.

“Jews are supposed to not only light their candelabras and menorahs but we are supposed to publicly display them as a symbol of our pride in a symbol of our hope,” he said. “We feel that in so many ways we owe it to the generations who came before to ensure that we pass down what they were able to pass down to us. The ultimate lessons of Hanukkah, I hope and pray, will extend to what’s going on in the Middle East and more broadly what’s in the world.”

©2023 Cox Media Group