Hanukkah, which ends this week, has underscored the distance between the two groups of US Jewry. They both celebrate Hanukkah, but it seems like only one of them delves into the holiday's meaning.
Hanukkah is the most Zionist holiday on the Hebrew calendar. It commemorates the Jews' revolt against foreign occupiers who desecrated the Temple and their war to expel the occupiers, and reestablish Jewish sovereignty in the region. But for some reason, in the past few years certain groups have elected not to see the holiday clearly. Instead of Jews vs. the Greek invaders, they see it as the enlightened vs. the primitive. Instead of Jewish sovereignty, they see environmentalism. A particularly extremist group, mostly young, celebrated Hanukkah by frying latkes that formed the letters BDS. And there are also a few public officials, known for their opposition to Israel, who wished the Jews a happy holiday and were mocked by those who argued, rightly, that if they really believed in what the holiday was about their entire political stance on Israel was fundamentally wrong.
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But there are also people who take a different approach, as if they understood the holiday. One of these is Lindsay Chevlin, one of my best friends at Columbia University. She graduated with honors from one of the best universities in the world, with grades that promise her a place in any medical school she wants to attend, but she made a different choice.
Lindsay chose to be a Maccabee and serve her people. About a week ago, she bought a one-way ticket to Israel to join the IDF. A few months from now, when she could have been attending any medical school in the world, she will don a uniform, be given a gun, and defend us, just like any other IDF soldier.
Lindsay is not completely cut off from the other group of young American Jews, the ones who pervert the significance of the holiday. She encountered them on a near-daily basis, as the vice president of Students Supporting Israel at Columbia University. She spoke with them and argued with them. She saw how they used the values in which she believes in against her.
Both these groups will keep clashing for the foreseeable future. One group will continue to move away from the American Jewish population. The second group, which includes people like Lindsay, will be the future of the Jewish people, and they are also what will remain of it. They are the ones who will marry other Jews, have families, and raise their children with Jewish values. They are the ones who will protect the existence and the light of Israel – whether on campuses in the Diaspora, or in jeeps in the Negev, or both – like Lindsay, the modern-day Maccabee who I am privileged to call my friend.
