The New York Times slimes Hanukkah

The New York Times recently challenged its Jewish readers by featuring a provocative, but deeply misguided column titled, “The Hypocrisy of Hanukkah.”

In it, novelist Michael David Lukas trashed our joyous winter festival as “an eight-night long celebration of religious fundamentalism and violence.”

The writer identified himself with the “Hellenized Jews” in the second century B.C., who rejected the faith of their ancestors and defiled the Jerusalem Temple with the worship of Greek gods — usty deities who demanded ethical behavior from neither themselves nor from humanity.

It’s not fundamentalism to cherish ancient traditions and holy ordinances, and it wasn’t “violence” to cleanse and rededicate the Temple and ourselves.

The word Hanukkah derives from Hebrew for “dedication”, and it also connects to the word “Chinuch,” or education. The derisive author who slammed “the hypocrisy of Hannukah” might benefit, like the rest of us, from re-dedication and education.

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