Dear Anna: A Hannukah Message for College Students

Note: “Anna” in the following letter is a composite, and is based on conversations I have had with multiple students and their parents, as well as some media reports.

Dear Anna:

I am just as furious as you with Liz Magill’s demeanor during her testimony before Congress. The university presidents of Penn, Harvard, and MIT all mumbled and stumbled when asked how they would classify calls for “the genocide of Jews.” (They invoked the importance of free speech, an argument that, knowing how quickly anything politically incorrect is canceled at these universities, was transparently hypocritical.) But it was the complete lack of emotion that made me angriest. These three presidents all know how vulnerable Jewish students like you feel; yet, when asked about calls to kill Jews, not one of them could show the slightest bit of emotion. Instead, we got pablum and legalese, topped off with a condescending smirk from Magill.

Anna, your generation was supposed to reap the benefits of 75 years of achievement. After the Holocaust, Jews created a comfortable home for themselves in the United States, and built a flourishing homeland in Israel. Your parents and grandparents worked overtime so that you could have a better life than any previous generation of Jews. On October 6th, everything was going according to plan. And then Hamas attacked.

Anna, you told me with tears in your eyes how shocked you were by the depravity of Hamas; burning people alive, beheading babies, and brutal sexual violence against women. For a few days, it even looked like Israel’s very existence hung in the balance. The sheer evil of it was bewildering not just to you, but to everyone. After watching the gruesome videos of this attack, one had to wonder: where is God? Even rabbis have been grappling with their own beliefs. Israeli TV did a feature on the Shura Army Base, where the 1,200 people murdered by Hamas were processed for burial. The rabbis and soldiers there had the agonizing task of identifying the mutilated bodies. In a television report on Shura, a soldier related that in the days after October 7th, a senior rabbi at Shura stopped participating in the daily services. When asked why, he explained: “I’m not ready to speak to God just yet.”

Hamas’s attack has inspired admirers around the world to attack Jews as well. There has been an explosion in antisemitism in the United States. And Anna, students like you have borne the brunt of this attack.  Antisemitism has exploded on campus; 73% of Jewish students have reported experiencing or witnessing incidents, and 37% feel compelled to hide their Jewish identity. Hillels have been invaded, and students have been assaulted, spit at, and cursed at; death threats have been posted publicly on campus discussion boards.

But even those who don’t attack the Jews are at best indifferent. It is now fashionable to ignore Jewish concerns; and that’s exactly what you saw when the university presidents testified before Congress.  One student mentioned to me that she doesn’t know who she can invite to her birthday party; friends who supported the same progressive causes as her have been steadfastly supporting Hamas. How can you socialize with someone who says that the victims at the Nova festival deserved to be killed? Signs of kidnapped Israelis are torn down by fellow students, or even worse, defaced with the word “occupier.” The propaganda of Hamas is ubiquitous, with many students accepting conspiracy theories that Israel staged the massacre. The chant of “From the river to the Sea,” has been mainstreamed, even though it clearly suggests that the historic Jewish homeland must now be Judenrein, one way or another.

On campus, “Zionist” is used as a pejorative, and Israelis are slandered and called Nazis. I know your heart aches for civilian deaths in Gaza. That is the Jewish way, one that goes back to the book of Genesis. When Jacob expected war with Esau, he prayed that he not kill any of the innocent in battle. We continue to pray fervently for that today. But at the same time, Anna, you know exactly who is responsible for the deaths of Palestinians: Hamas. Michael Walzer, the foremost contemporary expert on just war theory, wrote last week:

“Hamas benefits from civilian deaths; it isn’t indifferent to the fate of the people it rules, it has a positive interest in their suffering.”

Hamas uses human shields and calculates the strategic value of civilian deaths; it sees the death of Palestinians as a major benefit to its “100-year war.”. Hamas trades in human suffering, filming and publicizing their massacre to cause maximum anguish, taking hostages and then dangling them in front of their families. They are an army of sadists, driven by hatred. And they have murdered, tortured, and raped your fellow Jews, just because they are Jews. Anna, you have tried to talk to your friends about this, but they just turn away. You feel betrayed.

This betrayal extends to your professors, who have used regularly scheduled classes in other subjects to “explain” the conflict in Gaza. During these lectures, Jewish students are bullied into silence. And when students like you turn to the administration, what can they expect? On Tuesday, all of America saw that from the president on down, these universities have been complicit in making Jewish students feel unwanted.

Anna, I know you feel alone.  But sometimes being a Jew is going to be lonely. Generation after generation of Jews have learned how to go against the stream, to stand proud despite the jeers of haters and bullies. In many ways, that is the very lesson of Hanukkah.

Hanukkah is about the power of the few. A handful of Maccabees took on the Seleucid empire, a war of the few against the many. The ritual of the Menorah reinforces this theme. After the war, only one jar of oil is found, but that one jar is more than enough. One small candle is lit on the darkest, coldest night of the year, and yet it brings light to every Jew. Anna, you don’t need to be a part of the biggest and noisiest group. You just have to bring the light.

Anna, the lesson of Hanukkah is critical to students like you. On campuses, they hound you and gaslight you. They demand that you renounce your birthright and surrender to the majority. These tactics are not new at all. Medieval Christian polemicists offered the same arguments. First the gaslighting: Jews were condemned for killing Jesus in the past, even though Crusaders were murdering Jews right then and there in the present. These polemicists argued that the Jews were a dying, disappearing people who had been rejected by God; it was time for Jews to join Christianity, the winning team. Today, new polemicists demand that Jewish students bow to the majority and accept the wisdom of a noisy rabble.

Anna, Hanukkah reminds us of the power that a small, dedicated group of people has. That was true 2,200 years ago, and that is true now. You and your friends have proven yourself equal to the challenge. You have come together as a community, and stood up as activists. There are overflow crowds at Hillel events. As Molly Goldstein, (who is going to be speaking at KJ next Friday night,) said in an interview: “We’ve had Shabbat dinners filling the capacity of the kosher dining hall.” In the face of all the threats and hatred, Jewish students have rededicated themselves to the Jewish people. This rededication is what Chanukah is all about.

While the holiday of Hannukah started in Israel, it became far more significant in exile. Wherever they were, a handful of candles reminded Jews that they didn’t need to give up. Even the few can triumph, if they maintain their resolve.

Anna, you and your friends have been resolute. Bella Ingber, an NYU student who spoke to congressional leaders this week concluded her speech by saying: “I am a proud Jew, and I am a proud Zionist. I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. We are not going anywhere.”

Anna, students like you and Bella have added another page to the Hannukah story; you have told the world that the Jews are here to stay, and not going anywhere. And I am so proud of what you have accomplished. l know that if you are our future leaders, the Jewish future is very bright.

Chag Sameach!

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.