It\u2019s almost time to fire up the big menorah in the public square.<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s time for office workers to mix blue-and-silver Hanukkah decorations with symbols of Christmas, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice and, this year, Ramadan. It\u2019s time for school children to fry potato-and-onion pancakes and spin four-sided dreidels with Hebrew letters that stand for \u201ca great miracle happened here.\u201d It\u2019s time for parents to max out their charge cards.<\/p>\n\n
Party planners can find many alleged \u201ccarols\u201d on the Internet, such as this revised Santa Claus verse: \u201cThey\u2019re grinding their swords, sharp as a pin, a guerilla war, they\u2019re going to win. Maccabees are coming to town.\u201d Let\u2019s skip the even sillier \u201cEight Days of Fire,\u201d sung to the Jerry Lee Lewis classic.<\/p>\n\n
The bottom line is that the eight-day \u201cfestival of lights\u201d begins at sundown on Thursday, Dec. 21. For millions this has evolved into a super-holiday matched one-on-one in a cultural showdown with Christmas.<\/p>\n\n
Hanukkah is here, but what are folks all fired up about?<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe problem, as any rabbi will tell you, is that Hanukkah has traditionally been a minor Jewish festival,\u201d observed Columbia University historian David Greenberg, at Slate.com. \u201cIt commemorates the successful Israelite revolt in the second century B.C. against their Syrian oppressors, and their refusal to assimilate into the prevailing Hellenistic culture. Specifically, it celebrates the miracle in which, according to lore, a day\u2019s worth of oil fueled the candelabra of the Jew\u2019s rededicated temple for eight days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Hanukkah has a unique message, but one that often is drowned out as millions \u2014 of all races and creeds \u2014 stampede to the shopping mall. Many say that Hanukkah celebrates religious liberty and religious pluralism. Others emphasize its message that Jews must defend the purity of their faith, when they are tempted to assimilate into a dominant culture.<\/p>\n\n
I found myself dwelling on this second Hanukkah theme during a Dec. 8 press conference by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. This was not a Hanukkah event \u2014 but it could have been. Around the world, religious minorities are under attack when they refuse to buckle under to oppressive majority regimes.<\/p>\n\n
This commission accused U.S. officials of timidly defending religious liberty. For example, a State Department report in 1999 criticized seven \u201ccountries of \u201cparticular concern\u201d \u2014 Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and particular movements in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. The commission pressed, unsuccessfully, for the inclusion of four more in the 2000 report \u2014 Laos, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan. It must be hard for U.S. diplomats to admit the situation is getting worse, instead of better.<\/p>\n\n
The commission\u2019s Dec. 8 critique included reports on abuses in all of those lands and more. In Iran, four Baha\u2019is have been sentenced to death for apostasy and \u201cZionist Baha\u2019i activities.\u201d In China, violent crackdowns continue on the Falun Gong movement and Protestant and Catholic churches that refuse to kneel before state. Regional officials in China executed at least eight Uigher Muslims on charges of \u201csplitting the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The list goes on and on. Efforts to control religious minorities can be seen in Russia, where legislation threatens to the \u201cliquidation\u201d of thousands of small religious groups. Even the French National Assembly has created a list of 173 \u201cdangerous sects\u201d \u2014 including the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, the Unification Church and even some Baptists \u2014 that could be shut down if believers are caught committing crimes of \u201cmental manipulation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cEven the Europeans are headed in the wrong direction,\u201d said Jewish conservative Elliott Abrams, chairman of the religious freedom commission. \u201cWhat\u2019s even worse is how that is going to be cited by (regimes) that are aggressively oppressing their religious minorities. They\u2019ll be saying, \u2018Look, we\u2019re modeling parts of our laws on what they\u2019re doing in Belgium and France.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n
The most appropriate time to remember the plight of oppressed religious minorities is the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, said Abrams. But it sure wouldn\u2019t hurt if this solemn, and historically accurate, theme appeared amid the glitter of \u201cthe holidays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cHanukkah is the festival of freedom,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what often gets lost is that this meant freedom or DEATH. \u2026 Millions of believers around the world face the same choice today.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s almost time to fire up the big menorah in the public square. It\u2019s time for office workers to mix blue-and-silver Hanukkah decorations with symbols of Christmas, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice and, this year, Ramadan. It\u2019s time for school children to fry potato-and-onion pancakes and spin four-sided dreidels with Hebrew letters that stand for \u201ca […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n