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On Sunday, the first night of Hanukkah, a father-son terror team hit Australia’s Bondi Beach and massacred innocents at a family event celebrating the Jewish festival.
Ever since, well-intentioned commentators have proclaimed their anguish that this holiday of “light,” of “togetherness,” of universal values everyone can appreciate, could be marred in such a way.
But that vision of Hanukkah is a lie — and it’s not how we should be honoring the lives brutally taken.
Hanukkah is not a festival of vague illumination or seasonal warmth.
It is not about universalism. Bondi should have taught us that.
The story of Hanukkah is about Jews who refused — violently, unapologetically, and at great cost — to stop being Jews.
In our generation, we are fighting that same battle.
The Hanukkah story is not one of peaceful coexistence interrupted by misunderstanding, but of a foreign empire that demanded Jews abandon Jewish law, Jewish practice and Jewish identity.
Assimilation was not optional under the rule of the Seleucid Empire; it was compulsory.
The Maccabees did not respond with interfaith dialogue. They did not issue statements about shared values or organize conferences.
They took up arms. They fought.
They killed their oppressors and reclaimed the Temple.
The miracle was not the oil — it was Jewish survival through defiance.
We have spent decades watering that history down.
In America especially, Jews have learned to speak about ourselves in ways designed to reassure.
We frame Jewish holidays in universal terms of “light over darkness,” as if specificity itself were dangerous.
That instinct, especially after a massacre, is understandable.
It would also be a mistake.
Last week, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum released chilling footage of six of their abducted loved ones being forced to “celebrate” Hanukkah in Hamas tunnels in 2023 — just a few months before they were executed.
Even before the horror in Australia, it was an important reminder.
Neither Hamas nor the gunmen in Sydney murdered Jews because we failed to explain ourselves properly.
Antisemites do not target Jews because we don’t sufficiently emphasize that Hanukkah is about peace and light.
No, Jews are attacked because we are Jews — distinct, persistent and unwilling to disappear.
It’s up to us to make sure no one will forget it.
This refusal to disappear is precisely what Hanukkah commemorates: It’s the holiday of choosing Jewish continuity over comfort.
For too long, American Jews have tried to turn Hanukkah into a Jewish version of Christmas, not just culturally, but theologically.
As a result, we have hollowed out the holiday’s meaning — at the very moment we need it most.
Jewish survival has never depended on being embraced by the majority, but on refusing to surrender to it.
The attacks on us remind us that Jewish particularism, the insistence on remaining Jewish even when it is dangerous, is not a bug in our tradition; it is why we’re still here.
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This doesn’t mean glorifying violence for its own sake. It means being honest about history.
The Maccabees did not win through goodwill, but through strength, resolve and an unyielding commitment to Jewish law and life.
The Temple was rededicated not because the Jews were charming, but because they prevailed.
There is a reason antisemites despise Jewish pride more than Jewish suffering.
Suffering Jews can be pitied, patronized and instrumentalized — but to antisemites, proud Jews are intolerable.
This Hanukkah, Jews should stop explaining ourselves in ways designed to earn approval.
We should stop pretending the holiday is about generic goodness, and not about Jewish endurance through strength.
We should teach our children that Hanukkah is about refusing to assimilate, even when assimilation promises safety.
Every night we light menorah candles, we send a clear message: We are still here.
We will not convert. We will not disappear.
We will not reshape ourselves to be acceptable.
We will not turn our history into a children’s story that offends no one and teaches nothing.
Hanukkah should not be about making the world like us.
It must be about Jews liking ourselves enough to remain who we are.
Bethany Mandel writes and podcasts at The Mom Wars.