While Judaism undoubtedly has its universalist elements, writes William Kolbrener, Hanukkah is an unabashed celebration of its particularist aspects, commemorating a national victory over an intolerant Hellenistic cosmopolitanism:

The Jewish pride of the Hasmoneans got under the skin of the Greeks, just as claims to Jewish exceptionalism gets under the skin of anti-Semites and anti-Zionists today. Of course, for the latter, the state of Israel is the most egregious and unforgivable expression of Jewish exceptionalism. In the time of Antiochus, the Syrian Greek [heirs] of Plato and Aristotle exploited their claim toward universalism—the “woke” culture of the time—as part of a program to wipe out Jewish expressions of difference: no Torah learning, no circumcision, no celebration of the new month. The Greeks sought to strike at the heart of Jewish difference.

The Greeks, like some anti-Semites today, were proud to publicize their version of enlightenment, and to tolerate the Jews, but only so long as they would give up those practices that distinguished them.

On Hanukkah, we take a lesson from the courageous Maccabees, and express Jewish singularity and difference. Moreover, on Hanukkah, we acknowledge that being chosen is not an embarrassment, but a responsibility—so we . . . advertise the miracle of the menorah, a sign of our triumph over Greek universalist attempts to eradicate us, and our commitment to being guided by a higher ideal—in every aspect of our lives. Jewish law reflects [this element of the holiday’s message through its] emphasis on “publicizing the miracle.”

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.