A Chanukah reflection on being Jewish at a time of genocide.
On December 14 Diana Neslen, an anti-racist South African-born observant Jew, joined a 60-strong interfaith group singing carols for Palestine in central London, expecting to read out a statement reflecting on the atrocities going on in Gaza. But the Metropolitan Police intervened, using a section 14 dispersal order threatening participants with arrest if they did not disband immediately.
A gathering intended to promote peace, harmony and contemplation in the run-up to the festivals of Christmas and Chanukah, with a Church of England vicar officiating, broke up in disarray. Formal complaints have been filed with the police.
Diana’s statement was read by Hilary de Santos at another event in the same location on December 22. We publish the full text below to mark the eight days of dedication and reflection observed by Jews during Chanukah, which began on the night of December 25.
NWI
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Thu 26 Dec 2024
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Being Jewish in a time of genocide
By Diana Neslen
Today we reflect on a time of depravity of such a scale that few of us can contemplate it. When I look back on my life I see that it has been bookended by two genocides, the first committed by the Nazis against my own Jewish people; the second committed by Jewish people against a subject people, the Palestinians.
What does it mean to be a Jew at a time of genocide, when so many of the world’s Jewish communities turn a blind eye to the suffering carried out in their name? In March, Israel’s genocidal defence minister Israel Katz demanded a “united global advocacy front” with the diaspora to defend causes such as “the eradication of Hamas.” In a perversion of the Talmud, he also said: “All of Israel – that is, all Jews – are responsible for one another.” We are “all responsible”.
But we were not responsible for Katz’s words when he tweeted three months earlier that Gaza’s civilians “will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.” No, Mr Katz you alone are responsible for your words, as the judges in The Hague implied, when they cited them to explain their ruling that Palestinians face a plausible risk of genocide.
But for those of us who still call ourselves progressive Jews, what does it mean to hear the screams of children, to see hunger stalking the land, to see the desperate scrabble among the ruins of what once were homes and sanctuaries, to feel existential pain as the bombs rain down, to experience horror at seeing families with carrier bags that hold the remains of their loved ones. And in the depths of one’s being know that however much you wish to disown them, it is people who identify as Jews that are responsible for these atrocities?
Why do so many Diaspora Jews, so protective of their own history of persecution, so readily validate this carnage? The pain is almost too much to bear, devastating to know that this is being done in the name of a state that calls itself the Jewish state and says it is perpetrating these atrocities in my name. No this is not done in my name. Israel cannot corral me into supporting their savagery. Israel sets itself up as the salvation of Jews from persecution. But Israel is not our salvation, rather it will become our nemesis.
But maybe it is because too many of us have forgotten our history and the wise words of our sages. While tonight we talk of Xmas the Christian festival, I want to talk about the Jewish festival of Chanukah which starts this year on Boxing Day. It is supposed to celebrate the victory of the Maccabees, Jewish freedom fighters, over the Greeks who were trying to destroy the Jewish faith.
But the sages cautioned against celebration of violence and force, which they firmly believed would lead to the destruction of the Jewish people, and instead pointed to a miracle which occurred following the triumph of the Maccabees over the Greeks. When the fighters came to the temple they found only enough anointed oil to light the temple for one night – but miraculously it lasted for eight whole nights. The sages taught us that the miracle of the light took precedence over the victory of the fighters. And made Chanukah the festival of light.
While military prowess implies force and belligerence, a small flickering light implies fragility. But this fragility is essential to everything we do. It lights up our darkness allows us to see the world, gives an aura of safety security and ultimately of grace. This is what the sages wanted for their people.
Who looking on at the wasteland created by the Israeli state can deny that the violence and the savagery meted out by that state will leave an indelible stain on the communities that gave such endorsement to the genocide carried out in full view of the world? Our sages showed their wisdom then, but sadly it seems to have been jettisoned in the triumphalism of destruction and capture of territory.
The story of Chanukah is our Jewish story, and it tells us we can go in two directions. We can follow in the path of the flickering light, towards justice, humanity humility and peace. Or we can follow the path of war, destruction, violence and retribution. Many Jews are even now taking the first path, and more and more are joining us to create a people who can help light a path for the future.
In 1967 after the Israeli capture of the Palestinian territories, triumphalism was the order of the day for almost all Jewish people. I felt very differently and wrote in desperation to my mother. I paraphrased a Christian saying. “What,” I said, “shall it profit a country if it gains the whole world and loses its soul?” It was not wrong then and surely is not wrong now.
Let us recognise and condemn with all our might what Israel, supported without qualification by the complicit states of the global north, is doing, see this as the unreconstructed evil it is and go forward together in the path of peace, justice and reconciliation.
Reprinted from the newsletter of Jewish Voice for Labour, 26 December 2024