Hanukkah and the Rededication of American Jewry

The holiday of Hanukkah, writes Daniella Greenbaum Davis, “represents a reckoning between the allure of assimilated universalism and the fight to preserve Jewish particularism,” as portrayed in the story of the Hasmonean revolt against Seleucid rule and its Jewish supporters. But the name of the holiday means “dedication”—in the sense of consecration or inauguration—and refers to the rededication of the desecrated Second Temple. Davis sees the present moment as a time for American Jewry to follow in the footsteps of the Hasmoneans, and undergo its own rededication: