Non-Zionist Hanukkah

by on December 15, 2009 18

Gabe Roth’s twitter feed. "Can we stop using blue and white to signify Hanukkah? It’s a Jewish holiday, not an Israeli holiday." Shlomo Sand would have a lot to say about this. I’ll pass along his wisdom when I get finished his book. Also Rabbi Elmer Berger, the anti-Zionist rabbi. He got whupped by the lobby in the 1940s and 50s. But over Chanukah latkes in Brooklyn the other night, Jack Ross was passing around his memoir. The battle continues. 

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine, US Politics

{ 18 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Citizen says:
    December 15, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    The flag of Israel was inspired by the Jewish prayer shawl and anticipation of charges against Jews for dual loyalty:
    link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org

    You might notice that none of these issues have gone away.

  2. Chaos4700 says:
    December 15, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    I think the really depressing part is — and I’ve expressed this sentiment on prior threads — the actual religious meaning of the Star of David is going to become so desecrated by Israeli nationalists and their theft of it from the rest of Judaism, that as a symbol, it’s going to go the way of the swastika.

    • potsherd says:
      December 15, 2009 at 5:01 pm

      What religious meaning of the Star of David? It’s no more part of Judaism than the Tannenbaum is of Christianity.

      • Chaos4700 says:
        December 15, 2009 at 5:13 pm

        I suppose I wouldn’t know. From what I understand it’s a symbol relating to the number of houses or tribes affiliated with Judaism — I’m not clear on its meaning, merely that Judaism has adopted it as a symbol and unless enough Jews chose otherwise, that is the association it has.

        That’s the way symbols work. That the symbols have context in other settings — even when they are deliberately appropriate from those settings — doesn’t really change that. To hail back to that discussion of the swastika some weeks ago, neither the Nazi usage of the symbol nor the (ostensibly original) Indo-Asian origin of it precludes each other.

        It’s important to understand where symbols come from, but that doesn’t invalidate what symbols are, any more than it invalidates what symbols have been.

        • potsherd says:
          December 15, 2009 at 5:23 pm

          But if there is no “actual religious meaning” of the symbol, this religious meaning can’t be desecrated. Only the sacred can be desecrated.

        • Chaos4700 says:
          December 15, 2009 at 5:30 pm

          Out of curiosity, what do you consider “actual religious meaning” to be? I might be biased by my schooling as an artist, but I believe symbols have meaning because humans invest that meaning in them; there is nothing “magically divine” about a symbol. Symbols might be used to represent something divine, but (I don’t believe) God himself designates symbols — humans do. That doesn’t weaken what they are or how they work. Symbology is the process of taking something arbitrary and establishing it as no longer arbitrary.

        • potsherd says:
          December 15, 2009 at 5:52 pm

          A symbol can be created ex nihilo and invested with meaning, but in general they derive from some meaning already present. The question, “what does the symbol mean?” is always pertinent.

          The cross, for example, is the definitive symbol of Christianity today, and its meaning derives from the core of the doctrine – that Jesus died on the cross to redeem humanity from sin.

          If I were to say what an equivalent symbol for Judaism would be, I would say the tablets of the Mosaic laws. It is immediately identifiable as a symbol and its meaning is immediately clear.

          The star of David, in my opinion, more represents the ethnos, not the religion, to the extent it means anything.

        • Chaos4700 says:
          December 15, 2009 at 6:03 pm

          Well yeah, but that’s a discussion behind the motivations for constructing a symbol rather than the mechanism by which they come into existence. The motivation behind choosing the Star of David is a conscious effort by Zionists (I’m not sure to what extent the symbol predates Zionism, but what I’m saying certainly holds true now) from among the possible candidates because they needed to associate ethnicity with the religion. Because Zionism predicates itself on racial segregation. Just look at Witty — he talks about “self determination” but when he defines it, what he’s really talking about is apartheid — about creating an artificial “ethnic” majority (in reality, merely a religious one and functionally, one that favors Ashkenazim of European descent) through military force of arms where it didn’t exist before.

        • potsherd says:
          December 15, 2009 at 6:14 pm

          I would definitely agree that the star is a symbol of Zionism. It’s the notion that it derives from Judaism that I question. That it has any “authentic religious meaning.”

        • Chaos4700 says:
          December 15, 2009 at 6:25 pm

          Like I said earlier, that’s entirely contingent on what constitutes “authentic.” I don’t consider myself an authority on that for any religious symbol, let alone Jewish ones.

        • potsherd says:
          December 16, 2009 at 10:00 am

          Another discussion of Hanukkah as Zionist celebration: link to ynetnews.com

  3. wondering jew says:
    December 15, 2009 at 12:51 pm

    Blue and white are Chanuka colors. Red and green are Christmas colors. What colors do you suggest to undo the Israel association?

  4. Richard Witty says:
    December 15, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    I don’t adopt the militarist version of what Hanukkah is. I adopt the poetic/spiritualist of inner light at the most dark moment.

    “Miracle” is where inner light gets expressed as determination, kindness, community, not as victory.

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