A Hanukah Story for the Present Time:

A New Midrash from the 21st Century

from the archives of Benjamin Mordecai Ben-Baruch*

It came to pass that the religious zealots within the Jewish community felt threatened by the modernizers.  Seizing the Temple Mount, they attempted to erect the Third Temple.  Needing cheap labor to accomplish this task, they conquerred the peoples that they had declared to be their enemies.  In the dead of dark winter they blanketed the country with their cold, harsh winds of religious reaction.

Temporarily victorious, they used the forced labor of the conquerred peoples to complete their task of defiling and destroying the Temple Mount.  The blood and sweat of their enemies sacrificed for their unholy cause ran freely from the mosques they were destroying and the altars they were building.  In a final frenzied blitz, during the eight coldest and darkest days of the year, they passed repressive legislation, began mass expulsions of the modernizers, democrats, socialists, and human rights workers, and dedicated the Third Temple.

The Temple Mount was declared to be a holy place and entry was barred to all but observant Jews.  Public executions were performed on the new altar as they sang hymns to the New Jerusalem and rededicated themselves to the cause of religious fanaticism, nationalist extremism, and reactionary fascism.

Through collective struggle and personal sacrifice we have begun to overcome that dark period.  And so at this time of year we light candles, increasing the light each night for eight days, in order to symbolically keep the darkness of the religious and nationalist zealots away.

Hanukah 2036/5797

from the remarks of Vashti Bat-Hagar, Co-chair, Government of Israel-Palestine,

on the second night of the Festival of Ligts,

at the 18th Annual Convention of the Reconstructed Progressive Party,

Jewish-Palestinian National University in Reunited Jerusalem

* Benjamin Mordecai Ben-Baruch was a social historian who studied the evolution of Jewish views toward state power and their impact upon movements for social and economic justice among the Jewish people.  He participated in the demonstrations against the Hanukah Decrees of the Great Repressions and was imprisoned for 18 years.  Upon his release he was exiled, but returned during the Tolerant Democratic Renaissance of 2018.  He died in 2040 shortly after the publication of his last book, Trans-Zionism: The History of How Progressive Jewish Movements Challenged the Israeli Theocracy, 1997-2018 (Bir Zeit National University Press, 2039).

© Copyright 2000, Benjamin Ben-Baruch < bbenbaruch@earthlink.net >. Permission is hereby granted by the author for reproduction for non-commercial uses, provided it is reproduced in its entirety and proper credit given.