Happy Chanukkah

What I Love and Hate about this Holiday

I wasn't raised Jewish so I don't have the same warm memories of having to explain Hanukkah to my bored classmates, getting socks for presents or lighting candles. I grew up with Xmas, which meant gifts, lots of presents, the creeping suspicion that Santa Claus might be bullshit and the really nasty fights between relatives. I definitely prefer making December 25^th a movie day. Still, I've been Jewish long enough to have my own Hanukkah experience. I also seem to get more subscribers when I write about Jewish holidays so here you go -

Things I Hate About Hanukkah

1. The articles about how Hanukkah isn't “Jewish Xmas”

2. Articles and Memes calling Hanukkah a minor holiday

3. Articles and Memes going “well actually, it's a major holiday”

4. Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song

5. The fact that when you go to a Hanukkah party someone has to break out the guitar and sing that Fucking Adam Sandler Hanukkah Song

6. The Maccabeats – College A Capella groups are annoying by definition. At least I don't have to hear most of them.

7. That picture of the menorah in the window opposite a Nazi flag. I get the symbolism, but I also think that whomever was celebrating Hanukkah in Nazi Germany probably didn't live long after that holiday. [Edit: They moved to Israel so they’re fine - at least their descendants are fine]

8. That Fucking Adam Sandler song

9. The fact that there really aren't decent Hanukkah songs. I mean Xmas has its share of bad music too but at least there's enough of it that some good songs get through the noise (side note – I actually like the Mariah Carey and Wham songs that people claim to hate)

10. That Harlan Ellison story where the assimilated Jew goes back in time and makes sure that the oil lasts for eight days. It's an embarrassing story from Ellison's later years when he was struggling to find the better medication for his bipolar depression and his writing suffered.

Hanukkah Things I'm Neutral On

The Book of Judith

I used to very much dislike it because I'm a big fan of Yael and Sisera. Judith always seemed like a safe generic version of that story. Instead of Yael killing her guest and possibly having sex with him (or getting raped, the story is ambiguous), we have Judith announcing that she's going to kill Holofernes and no one should think that she's going into his tent for anything but murder. Still, I do like the paintings and it is one of the rah rah fight the Hellenizers apocrypha books that doesn't praise the Maccabees.

What I Love about Hanukkah

1. The candles are pretty

2. I love how the rabbis made up this long lasting oil story so that they could celebrate a victory over the forces of assimilation without praising the Maccabees who really turned out to be garbage people

3. Latkes – the first time I heard about latkes, they were mentioned in a University of Minnesota Hillel and everyone made yum sounds. Since I grew up in passive aggressive Minnesota in the height of 90s irony and encountered similar reactions to lutefisk (a Swedish dish that is universally regarded as disgusting), I was certain that the noises were ironic and that latkes were endurance tests. I had little experience with honest declarations of joy in regards to food. Happily, I learned how much I was wrong. Latkes are delicious with apple sauce, sour cream or ketchup (they are potato based after all).

4. The fact that Hanukkah is Zionist but not too Zionist. After all, Hanukkah is a holiday that lasted during the centuries of the diaspora when other Israel holidays faded. So it's about Jewish survival regardless of circumstances.

5. But really Hanukkah is Zionists. Fuck the colonizers – be they Greeks or Romans or the current group of “honorary Aryans”

6. The fact that Hanukkah is about Judaism and not just Jews as a people. Jews have lasted but there's a lot of assimilation. Hanukkah says that there will always be Jews who actually care about halacha and keep kosher and Shabbos, no matter how many Jews go Christian or Buddhist or Communist.

7. Seriously, those latkes are amazing. You gotta try them. Even the latkes that come in a box are pretty good.

8. Jelly donuts are good too.

9. When I googled dinosaur menorah, I found pages of awesome menorahs that I need to buy when I have more money.

   

That's pretty much it for now. I have work to do. The local library finally re-opened after four and a half years. So I'm take a client's class. Have a great Hanukkah, unless you already celebrated that weird magic baby holiday then you know, have a good Monday.

Speaking of Yael and Sisera, I edited and published She Nailed a Stake Through His Head. It even has a Judith and Holofernes story.

I am finally admitting that ChatGPT has killed my academic fraud career. If you could help out while I look for another income stream, I’d be most grateful.

Since I’m also Zionist (meaning I’m a Jew who doesn’t trust the good intentions of non-Jews, especially when people I considered allies cheered on October 7 mass murder and rape), I have sadly lost my leftist affection for AOC and the rest of the squad. Donate to AIPAC to piss them off.