One of the reasons organizing ourselves into communities is so integral to our well-being and our place in society is the sense of kinship and familiarity it creates with others, even those we have never met.

While Channukah is often described as a “minor holiday,” it holds deep significance for me for the same reason all our holidays do: when I light the first candle this evening on my Channukiah, I know that many others in my community are doing the same. In that moment, and in that shared knowledge, I feel connected to something ancient, sacred, and uplifting.

Earlier this week, a video was released showing The Beautiful Six, the six hostages who were later killed by Hamas, observing Channukah and lighting the first candle in the tunnels of Gaza.

The video is haunting: seeing the faces of these beautiful lives that could have been saved, listening to them speak about the Channukah traditions that awaited them upon their release, something that never came to pass, and watching them participate in the same ritual many of us were observing at that very moment, but under unimaginably different circumstances.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the six hostages seen in the video, rightly condemned the Israeli government for cynically using the footage to claim they had returned the hostages. As she said, they did not bring them home, they returned their bodies in bags.

The story of Channukah is often told as a story of miracle, but it is also a story about power, and about how power does not automatically confer righteousness. When you are powerless, it can be enough to name your victimhood. When you have power, however, you must decide how to use it, and that choice inevitably invites scrutiny and criticism.

The Maccabees fought for the right of Jews to practise their traditions openly, without having to hide their Judaism. Yet they also imposed a narrow vision of Jewish practice on their coreligionists, and the power they amassed after their revolt ultimately contributed to their downfall.

Those who cynically use the video of the six hostages to claim innocent victimhood are deliberately omitting a central pillar of the Jewish tradition the Maccabees fought to preserve: the obligation to question, debate, and inquire.

The hostages were alive last Channukah and could have been saved. Israel, as a sovereign state with power, had the capacity to act. It had agency—to end the war, as many had argued long before then was necessary, or to continue it, knowing that more hostages would die, alongside the immense destruction and loss of life in Gaza.

Channukah, then, should not only be a time to celebrate miracles, but also a time to wrestle with what it means to hold power. It should absolutely be celebrated—we are extraordinarily fortunate to live in an era of a sovereign Jewish state. Yet as we celebrate, we must also ask: how do we use that power to preserve, rather than destroy, our peoplehood, our traditions, and our values?

This is the question we have been wrestling with this year: who we are, and who we want to be.

I continue to love my people and my community, and to love Israel, a country of which I am not only a citizen, but one that promises me protection, not as merely a shelter, but as a place that asks of us to grapple with who we can be, and what the State of Israel can yet become.

So tonight, when I light the first candle, I will think not only of the miracles of our past, but also of where we may have faltered. I will ask where we can do better, and how we can correct past failures to build a future that is more just, more equitable, and more humane.

The story of the oil lasting eight days reminds us that, against all odds, we persevered. It is hardly the first, or the only, Jewish story with that ending. And so, despite all odds, we can build a future of peace. Despite all odds, we can imagine an equitable and democratic Israel. Despite all odds, we can fight for a Zionism that is not at odds with, but inextricably linked to, Palestinian safety and sovereignty.

This is the journey we are on at JSpaceCanada: to lead a movement not only for the people we are today, but for the people we know we can become.

Thank you for continuing to be a part of that journey, and Happy Channukah,

Maytal Kowalski
Executive Director