For only the fifth time since 1900, this year the first night of Chanukah falls on Christmas Day. That’s good news for American retailers, who have good reason to hope that the holiday gift-giving encouraged by this coincidence will be better for their profit margin than when the Jewish “Festival of Lights” is celebrated weeks earlier, as is usually the case.
The joint celebration is also good news for the growing number of Americans who have interfaith relationships and families where both holidays are celebrated. Not everyone who intermarries raises their kids with celebrations of “Chrismukkah,” placing menorahs near Christmas trees. Yet with Jewish intermarriage rates well above 70% for those who are not Orthodox and with at least 61% of all Jews who have wed in the 21st century in an interfaith marriage, the blending of the two holidays in some way has become normative rather than an outlier practice.
There is nothing wrong with giving gifts, and the need for interfaith families to avoid religious conflicts is obvious. But this year, more than ever, it’s important to remember that Chanukah is not just the Jewish version of Christmas.
Hijacking the holiday
Portraying it in that manner so as to make everyone feel included is natural in a country where even the most benign forms of sectarianism are sometimes associated with illiberal or even racist ideas. Yet the cost to the Jewish community from this sort of amalgamation of the festivities goes far beyond the discomfort some feel about the elevation of what was, to earlier generations, a minor festival rather than a central expression of Jewish identity.
On top of that, some Jews use it as a platform for non-Jewish causes, as is often the case with other holidays like Passover. As seen last year, that meant the dismal spectacle of left-wingers, including the antisemitic group Jewish Voice for Peace, trying to hijack the holiday by making their opposition to Israel and its war of self-defense against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and other Iranian-backed terror groups elsewhere as the centerpiece of the festivities.
All these ideas are deeply mistaken, as well as a sign of the troubling state of American Jewry as it heads into the second quarter of the 21st century.
Chanukah is not a way for Jews to join in the purely secular Christian observance—at least for many Americans—of a December holiday season that is more about giving and receiving presents than any religious belief. It is not a blue-tinseled celebration of “peace on earth and goodwill to all.” Most importantly, in the current context, it is not a way to superimpose a new version of Jewish identity predicated on a sanctification of Jewish powerlessness and support, whether tacit or overt, for those who seek the genocide of Jews and the destruction of their state.
It may come as a surprise to the many American Jews being raised on “Chrismukkah” moral equivalence, but the Chanukah story is pretty much the opposite of the common interpretation of the “Christmas spirit.” It’s about a conflict when Jews had to fight to retain not just their independence against Syrian-Greek invaders but their religious identity, as a popular and all-consuming secular Hellenist culture threatened to overwhelm Judaism. Rather than an expression of peace, the revolt of the Maccabees was a battle against foreign oppression and wound up a bloody civil war.
The priest Mattathias and his five sons, in addition to their followers, fought both their Syrian Greek oppressors and the assimilated Jews who had embraced the Hellenistic practices of their foreign overlords. Contemporary leftists critical of Chanukah aren’t wrong to point out that most American Jews probably have a lot more in common with the latter, who were embracing a universalist culture and rejecting the narrow, parochial beliefs of the rebels, than the heroic Judah Maccabee.
Nevertheless, we need to retain the holiday’s historical meaning instead of allowing it to be merged into Christmas or transformed into an excuse for bashing Israel. And we especially need to do that when Israel is mired in a physical war on multiple fronts and a rhetorical one on the world stage.
Erasing Jewish history
It takes a particularly perverse reimagining of the festival to believe that this has somehow more to do with the desire of Palestinian Arabs to erase Jewish history—and eradicate the Jewish state and its people—rather than with Israel’s survival.
In the last 15 months, American Jews have witnessed an unprecedented increase in Jew-hatred in the wake of the Hamas assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. While Israelis have been fighting for their lives and defeating their enemies, the situation in the United States is, while less bloody, in some ways just as troubling. Jews who refuse to join the pro-Hamas mobs on college campuses have been shunned, harassed and subjected to violence. Smears of Israel committing genocide against Palestinians that amount to a modern version of traditional blood libels have been mainstreamed in the media and popular culture. For the first time in their lives, many Jews who took their acceptance in American society for granted are starting to question both their assumptions about life here as well as the reliability of their non-Jewish liberal allies on other concerns.
Driving this awful situation is the dominance of leftist ideas like critical race theory and intersectionality, as well as the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), which specifically excludes the one minority that is subjected to the most religion-based hate crimes: the Jews. Much like the Hellenism that sought to overwhelm Jewish life in the land of Israel 2,189 years ago, this new secular faith is a potent threat to Jews. Yet it also has attracted support from some within the community who are more comfortable with a form of Jewish identity that eschews traditional norms, as well as the right of sovereignty and self-defense in their people’s ancient homeland.
In this context, Chanukah needs to be understood as a call to arms to stand up against those forces that now play the role that Hellenism did in the era of the Maccabean revolt. It is a warning from history that—just as was the case in 165 BCE—the ability to preserve Jewish faith and identity requires ordinary Jews to speak out and refuse to bend their knees to the idols and fashionable ideologies of our time.
Recognizing the difference
Acknowledging the stark differences between Christmas and Chanukah means no disrespect to the former or to the feelings of those who cherish it. And contrary to those who regard raising the wall of separation of religion and state as high as possible as the greatest expression of Jewish identity every December, a Jewish community that is confident in its own faith and beliefs need not fear the public celebration of a holiday that the majority of Americans embrace.
The problem with the whole idea of Chrismukkah is not just the way it normalizes the weakening of Jewish identity. The watering down of the very different holiday also lends itself to an effort to isolate, smear, and ultimately, harm the one Jewish state on the planet.
The candles we light on the eight days of Chanukah symbolize a powerful belief in the justice of the rights of the Jewish people. They epitomize a willingness to stand up against those who have assaulted Jews, in addition to those who support the antisemitic campaign to demonize Israel and render it defenseless.
Embracing the spirit of Chanukah means solidarity with the refusal of the Jews to abandon their faith and their land. That’s a festival of lights that transcends commercialism or even the acceptance of assimilation that is an inevitable part of being a small religious minority. This is a holiday that emphasizes the continuance of the miracle of Jewish survival that has kept the faith of the Maccabees alive and flourishing in the Jewish homeland, as well as in America. Lighting those candles is a way for every Jew to show that the Jewish people will not die.
Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas!
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.