May our flames be a recommitment: A message from JVP Executive Director Stefanie Fox

I love the tradition of placing our menorahs in the window during Hanukkah. With my seven year old, I like to discuss what we want the flickering lights of our candles to signify — to us, and to our neighbors. 

At JVP, we often say that the safety and freedom of all people are bound up together. Right now, this idea is not abstract; it is life or death, and we all have to act like it. 

There is no better example of the commitment to the sanctity of all human life and the principle of solidarity than the courage shown by Ahmed al-Ahmed: a bystander to the terrifying antisemitic attack in Sydney this week where gunmen opened fire on Jews celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, and killed at least 15 people. No community should have to face this kind of violence.

Ahmed was having lunch nearby when the Hanukkah celebration turned to horror and chaos. Without hesitation, he ran toward the men with guns. Ahmed risked his life, sustaining multiple gunshots, to save the lives of many more. 

Ahmed’s example is one of many that gives me hope in these terrifying times where antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic, racist, anti-immigrant, anti-trans, and so many other kinds of oppressive and lethal violence threaten our communities. When Jews are hurt, it must strengthen our resolve — yes, to dismantle antisemitism, and equally, to show up for every community under threat. 

I want the lights of my menorah to signify: We belong to each other.

But the Israeli regime and its backers push the opposite story, immediately weaponizing this tragedy to fuel the continued genocide of Palestinians and attempt to repress the movement for Palestinian freedom. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the mass killing in Bondi was fueled by Australian prime minister Albanese’s call for a Palestinian state. It is a vile and predictable pattern that Israel would attempt to distort and use an act of antisemitism to further the impunity with which they continue to starve and kill Palestinians. It is our responsibility to resist this with everything we have. 

For 800 days, the Israeli military and government has waged an endless campaign of mass slaughter and starvation. This week, at least 14 Palestinians in Gaza, including several children, were killed as deadly structural collapses and flooding destroyed the makeshift shelters Palestinians have been forced into, while Israel continues to block mobile homes and shelters from entering Gaza. Israeli soldiers — in the midst of carrying out a genocide — light menorahs they have constructed from the literal rubble, like in Beit Lahia, Gaza, on the ruins of the Indonesian Hospital, where they lit a menorah made of empty missile casings. 

Their menorahs are weapons of domination and war. 

I’m grateful for the JVP Rabbinical Council, who found words for my disgust and rage. They write: “Today, the Hanukkiah — a symbol of hope and divine presence — has been repurposed into an accoutrement to the guns, tanks and missiles of genocide; a perversion of the ethical core of Jewish tradition.” 

But our rabbis also remind us we have a choice at this moment, that we can contest for meaning against this betrayal of our tradition: “Hanukkah invites us to use the flames of the Hanukkiah to inspire sacred solidarity. It challenges us to transcend the illusion of power inherent in the violence of empire and nation-statism, reminding us that true strength lies in our collective ability to resist imperial brutality.” 

What do we want the lights of our candles to mean, to us and to our neighbors? I ask my son. 

Tonight, as I light my menorah I am doing so as an act of defiance — a rejection of supremacy, domination and death. A rejection of both antisemitism and its brutal weaponization against Palestinians. Let us rededicate to doing everything in our power to end the genocide of Palestinians, and build a Judaism rooted in collective liberation and safety for all.

As I put the menorah in the window, I am drawing courage from Ahmed al-Ahmed’s example. May our flames be a recommitment: We will put everything on the line to fight for one another. 

Chag Hanukkah Sameach,

Stefanie Fox