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Jewish Week Letter

This week's Jewish Week published my letter in response to Gary Rosenblatt's column last week:

Gary Rosenblatt’s statement that the Maccabee war against secular Jews in the Chanukah story is “almost as if the haredim of Jerusalem today were to take up arms against the secular Jews of Tel Aviv, and much of Israel,” is shocking and deeply offensive.

In fact, Chanukah was a war of liberation against the Greeks, who forbade Jews from practicing our religion. They banned Jewish observance — including Shabbat and circumcision — and desecrated the Temple. The “more assimilated brethren” to whom Rosenblatt refers were not secular humanists who wanted to be left alone to live a Hellenist pagan lifestyle. They actively aided and supported Antiochus in the existential Greek war against Judaism.
In sharp contrast, the secular Jews of Tel Aviv — even the very anti-religious ones like Tommy Lapid — are not calling for a ban on Shabbat observance and supporting a brutal occupier of Israel, as our “more assimilated brethren” did at the time of Chanukah.

Joseph Schick Forest Hills, N.Y.
posted on 12/24/2003