Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘new york times’

Interesting op-ed by David Brooks in the New York Times about the real story of Chanukah and the difficult questions that it raises:

Generations of Sunday school teachers have turned Hanukkah into the story of unified Jewish bravery against an anti-Semitic Hellenic empire. Settlers in the West Bank tell it as a story of how the Jewish hard-core defeated the corrupt, assimilated Jewish masses. Rabbis later added the lamp miracle to give God at least a bit part in the proceedings.

But there is no erasing the complex ironies of the events, the way progress, heroism and brutality weave through all sides. The Maccabees heroically preserved the Jewish faith. But there is no honest way to tell their story as a self-congratulatory morality tale. The lesson of Hanukkah is that even the struggles that saved a people are dappled with tragic irony, complexity and unattractive choices. 

(Hat tip: Lesley).

It is certainly true that there are a number of ways to interpret the story of Chanukah. It can be read as a tale of the triumph of religious extremism over secularism. It can be read as an anti-assimilationist tale. It can be viewed as an anti-imperialist struggle, or as a divisive civil war.

All of this tends to get lost in the shuffle among most people who simply view Chanukah as the “festival of lights”, a generic, commercialized Jewish version of the equally-commercialized Christmas, a simple excuse for retailers to make money. A view would have likely incensed the anti-assimilationist Maccabees to no end.

Sure, at its core, Chanukah is just another one of those “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat” holidays that fill the Jewish calendar. And there’s nothing wrong with a little celebration. But it’s important to know what, and why, we’re celebrating.

Happy Chanukah, all!

Jon Stewart speculates. Scary thought.

Update: For a well-placed joke, this rumour’s sure making the rounds.

Update #2: Apparently the rumours made the front page of yesterday’s New York Times. Wow, where have I been?

A call for a return to responsible journalism, perhaps? Senior New York Times editors have resigned over the Jayson Blair scandal.

Blair, if you recall, was the reporter who plagiarized stories, wrote from bylines thousands of miles away from where he was, and just plain invented facts. The Times’ reputation has been taking quite a hit since this scandal came to light, needless to say.

But maybe it’s precisely because the Times is such a high-profile paper, that this will serve as a wake-up call to other publications to clean up their act. With the line between fact and fiction getting blurrier by the day in journalism, it might be a much-needed jolt.