Joshua Blustein, '24, Examines Whether the Hanukkah Story Should Make Us Uncomfortable

Does Hanukkah Make You Uncomfortable? This Year Ask Why

The Festival of Lights has long caused confusion. The Talmud in “Tractate Shabbat” asks bluntly: “What is Hanukkah?”

The always reliable New York Times published an op-ed in 2018 that said, “Hanukkah, in essence, commemorates the triumph of fundamentalism.”

Though tinged with its quotidian antisemitism, the Times’ article isn’t far off. Hanukkah is not a fun-filled story of latkes, presents, and Adam Sandler. It is a story of a traditionalist family putting its foot down against an overbearing government and society that sought to compel adherence to an ideology believed to be the most enlightened of its day.

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