Hanukkah and Purim anti-antisemitism

Two methods of survival get a holiday, but we have a hard time stomaching one of them

People love People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn. Like, most people who’ve read it, including myself, love it. One of the most famous aspects of the book is the distinction Horn draws between two types of antisemitism, exemplified by the events we commemorate on Hanukkah and Purim.

Up front, I’ll say that I don’t have a copy of the book anymore, and I don’t have access to an ebook version. Which is frustrating at the moment. So, I don’t recall whether Horn discusses the other side of the narratives of Purim and Hanukkah in the way that I’m going to discuss them - I just trust that my perspective is weird enough to not cover the same ground as hers.

For the quotes below, I’m relying on this article that quotes the book. (As a foetal academic: ugh!)

“Two distinct patterns of antisemitism can be identified by the Jewish holidays that celebrate triumphs over them: Purim and Hanukkah,” she wrote in her bestselling book, People Love Dead Jews. “In the Purim version of antisemitism, exemplified by the Persian genocidal decrees in the biblical Book of Esther, the goal is openly stated and unambiguous: Kill all the Jews.”

“In the Hanukkah version of antisemitism, whose appearances range from the Spanish Inquisition to the Soviet regime, the goal is still to eliminate Jewish civilization,” she continues. “This goal could theoretically be accomplished simply by destroying Jewish civilization, while leaving the warm, de-Jewed bodies of its former practitioners intact....[The regime] isn’t antisemitic but merely requires that its Jews publically flush thousands of years of Jewish civilization down the toilet in exchange for the worthy prize of not being treated like dirt, or not being murdered.”

Horn’s distinction seems accurate to me, and astute. Hanukkah antisemitism can be more insidious because there aren’t necessarily flashy moments of hatred to rally against. Purim antisemitism is the kind that makes headlines and is more likely to find a place in the history books.

Of course, Hanukkah antisemitism - in the actual story of Hanukkah - arose in a life-or-death situation. Perhaps presciently for the present moment, the pagan leaders promised the revolutionaries material wealth as a reward for apostasy, not just to spare their lives. And it’s worth noting that, per 1 Maccabees, a Jewish apostate is the first to die in the revolt, not the king’s official, who dies second.

I think I’ll be writing a post on each of 1-4 Maccabees, but no promises, hypothetical reader.

Purim antisemitism is the Shoah variety of antisemitism. It probably merits less description here - it’s relatively straightforward in its evil, practically and morally. You notice when you’re in it; you don’t necessarily notice Hanukkah antisemitism until pretty late into the process, unless you’re in a situation like in 1 Maccabees in which your life is on the line.

What I want to highlight is the inverse of Hanukkah and Purim antisemitism: Hanukkah and Purim anti-antisemitism. In other words, the question I’ll be addressing is: how did the hero(in)es of the stories fight the antisemitism, and why did they fight that way?

Hanukkah anti-antisemitism

In the accounts of the Maccabean revolt, the heroes’ actions are clear and direct. The pagan authorities force them to choose between their lives and Torah, and they pick the latter. They fight “like a lion,” and per the same poetic passage regarding Judah Maccabee in 1 Maccabees (Sidney Tedesche’s translation):

He sought out and pursued those who broke the Law

And exterminated those who troubled his people.

Law-breakers cowered for fear of him …

I don’t know that it’s worth lingering too much on the intra-Jewish conflict involved in this revolt, it’s just fascinating to me, and thus probably the focus on my post on 1 Maccabees, so I’ll shut up about it here. Read the other post when it’s out, hypothetically.

The point I want to make here is that Hanukkah anti-antisemitism is practical: weapons and warfare. The threat to Jewish faith and identity faces a militant threat (and loses).

Purim anti-antisemitism, part 1: background

If you know me much, you know the Esther narrative is of particular interest to me. There are various reasons for this that I won’t go into here. But one thing that’s struck me is that Purim anti-antisemitism is something close to the opposite of Hanukkah anti-antisemitism.

Purim antisemitism is met not with military force, like Hanukkah antisemitism. It’s met with subversion - and suffers a more definitive defeat.

Allow me, hypothetical reader, to explain. But first, let’s get some background as to why I think this point is a significant one to raise. Esther, it may or may not be obvious to a modern reader, is a messianic figure.

According to traditional sources, Haman’s genocidal decree came to be because of Jews’ unfaithfulness at the start of the story:

At the end of this period, the king gave a banquet for seven days in the court of the king’s palace garden for all the people who lived in the fortress Shushan, high and low alike.

If it’s not immediately apparent, the issue is that the local Jews were at this feast, although apparently kosher food was available at it.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe interprets this scenario as follows:

Was "enjoying the feast of the wicked King Achashverosh" so grave a sin that it warranted a decree of annihilation upon "all the Jews, young and old, children and women, on one day"?

But the problem was not so much their participation in the feast; indeed our Sages tell us that Achashverosh had supplied kosher food for his Jewish subjects. The problem was that they enjoyed the feast. With the royal kosher menu in hand, the exiled Jew felt he no longer needed G‑d for his survival.

The decree of annihilation was not a punishment, but a consequence of this attitude. Putting his faith in mortals, the Jew denied his supernatural status—the status of a nation whose very survival belies the laws of history. The Jew was now lonely and vulnerable to the decrees of a mortal Achashverosh.

There’s a lot to discuss in the Rebbe’s analysis. It should serve as a warning to us all that no king or president, however accommodating, replaces G-d. We need to remember that our safety comes from G-d, not mortal tolerance.

More expansively, we also need to recall from the Prophets that G-d will provide a lot more for us than safety, for eternity: the resurrection of the dead, utopia on earth, the Third Temple, the annihilation of our enemies, the complete reuniting of our people, and so on. And writes Malachi:

And on the day that I am preparing, said GOD of Hosts, they shall be My treasured possession; I will be tender toward them as a man is tender toward a son who ministers to him.

And you shall come to see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between those who have served God and those who have not.

For lo! That day is at hand, burning like an oven. All the arrogant and all the doers of evil shall be straw, and the day that is coming—said GOD of Hosts—shall burn them to ashes and leave of them neither stock nor boughs.

But for you who revere My name a sun of victory shall rise to bring healing. You shall go forth and stamp like stall-fed calves,

and you shall trample the wicked to a pulp, for they shall be dust beneath your feet on the day that I am preparing—said GOD of Hosts.

This may be uncomfortable for many contemporary, especially heterodox, Jews to read - fortunately, my readership is only hypothetical - but the basic ideas of Mashiach’s coming are a major belief for most of Judaism, as they have been for most of history. I’m not arguing about what one should believe. That’s not my point. Most Jews in the US are Reform, so messianism isn’t the dominant belief in the US. But to my point, Rambam certainly expresses the historically dominant stance:

In the future, the Messianic king will arise and renew the Davidic dynasty, restoring it to its initial sovereignty. … Anyone who does not believe in him or does not await his coming, denies not only the statements of the other prophets, but those of the Torah and Moses, our teacher.

If I’m not going to argue for a stance on Mashiach, why am I going on this tangent, other than that it’s something I enjoy rambling about?

My point is simple: to understand how most Jews read Esther, one has to know that most Jews have believed in the prophecies regarding a real, individual messiah. Or two, Mashiach ben Yossef and Mashiach ben David, if you want to get technical.

Esther is a model for Mashiach, in a number of significant ways. She comes along and follows G-d in a time of darkness for the Jewish people, and she ends up eradicating our enemies. In Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer the Great describes the “birth pangs of the Messiah”:

He also said: In the times of the approach of the Messiah, impudence will increase and high costs will pile up. Although the vine shall bring forth its fruit, wine will nevertheless be expensive. And the monarchy shall turn to heresy, and there will be no one to give reproof about this. The meeting place of the Sages will become a place of promiscuity, and the Galilee shall be destroyed, and the Gavlan will be desolate, and the men of the border shall go round from city to city to seek charity, but they will find no mercy. And the wisdom of scribes will putrefy, and people who fear sin will be held in disgust, and the truth will be absent. The youth will shame the face of elders, elders will stand before minors. Normal family relations will be ruined: A son will disgrace a father; a daughter will rise up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be the members of his household. The face of the generation will be like the face of a dog; a son will no longer be ashamed before his father. And upon what is there for us to rely? Only upon our Father in heaven.

I quote this at length because it’s a highly evocative list of traits, isn’t it? It’s hard not to read that passage - as I often do - and not think of current events, but I’m sure people from any era would feel the same. I guess that’s part of its power. But the main takeaway I want to emphasise here is that during the awful time leading up to the coming of Mashiach, all we can do is rely on G-d. Esther enters the pagan palace at a moment in which faith in G-d is lacking, replaced by her comrades’ faith in secular leadership. She relies on G-d and gets the job done.

The challenging aspect of the story is how she saves her people.

Purim anti-antisemitism, part 2: Crypto-Mashiach

Esther’s angle of attack is from within the royal palace, in secrecy as a crypto-Jew. As the Megillah states:

Esther did not reveal her people or her kindred, for Mordecai had told her not to reveal it.

Esther Rabbah reads this passage in its broader Torah context:

“Esther did not disclose her family” – teaching that she practiced silence for herself, like her ancestor Rachel, who practiced the craft of silence; all her great descendants maintained silence.

Esther at least does not reveal her Jewish status outwardly - on this the rabbis all agree. Common readings assert that Esther did not, in fact, disobey any aspect of halakha in her time in hiding, e.g., by arguing that a double entered the king’s chambers to sleep with him, preventing Esther from having to sin in that way. None of this is directly in the Megillah, and is thus pretty open to pushback. The peshat does not entail Esther taking pains to retain her piety.

I won’t go through Esther’s whole trajectory in the palace, but the result is, of course:

So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies.

A lot of modern Jewish readers, at least heterodox ones, feel some understandable discomfort upon reading this chapter of the Megillah. But wait, there’s more!

When the number of those slain in the fortress Shushan was reported on that same day to the king,

the king said to Queen Esther, “In the fortress Shushan alone the Jews have killed a total of five hundred men, as well as the ten sons of Haman. What then must they have done in the provinces of the realm! What is your wish now? It shall be granted you. And what else is your request? It shall be fulfilled.”

“If it please Your Majesty,” Esther replied, “let the Jews in Shushan be permitted to act tomorrow also as they did today; and let Haman’s ten sons be impaled on the stake.”

The king becomes afraid because of the scale of devastation at the hands of Jewish avengers - understandably. But I don’t think most readers in the modern world, who are accustomed to a happy Purim, and to viewing Esther as an ethically modern girlboss type of figure, would expect Esther’s response here on their first reading of the Megillah.

Of course, we have other stories in the tradition of Jewish women leading in battle and slaying our enemies, including as warriors on the battlefield, but Esther ordering the slaughter of hundreds of enemies seems particularly out of place with how we commemorate her. Both Yael and Judith use seduction to kill a single foe, which seems odd enough. Esther commands a massacre after something like a process of seduction, and of concealment of her Jewish status, at the very least.

And what about the king being cowed into sending out orders against those who’d just a hot minute ago been his own guys? Esther’s course of action isn’t just successful at eliminating a momentary threat, but at basically conquering the land, too.

Purim anti-antisemitism, part 3: Crypto-Jewry and Crypto-Mashiach

Esther is very clearly a messianic archetype in her story, and it shouldn’t be surprising that she has served as a very straightforward model for Mashiach among some communities (formerly, a large segment of mainstream Judaism, too) for a long time.

The Dönmehs, who perpetuate a longer-running continuous Jewish tradition than most of the more mainstream current movements, have written of their messianic claimant, Shabtai Tzvi:

He holds Esther’s key:

Goodness—look and see:

The mystery of the sanctity.

Why would Shabtai have anything in common with Esther? Because he was an “apostate messianist” figure, meaning that Dönmhehs and other historical Sabbateans view his fake apostasy to Islam as one of the necessary steps for Mashiach to redeem the world. He had, as it were, the Key of Esther.

The parallel becomes more obvious with the later apostate messianic figure Eva Frank, perhaps mostly because of her sex, but also because of her cohort of seven accompanying women like Esther’s seven handmaidens, and so on.

It’s easy to see why Esther could serve as a model for apostate messianism. She doesn’t openly go to war with the forces that attempt to carry out Purim antisemitism. She models Purim anti-antisemitism by hiding who she is, whether breaking the Law in the process or not.

Regardless of one’s feelings toward historically heretical or mainstream interpretations of her actions, we all know the result of the story.

Esther gets the job done.

Why am I going on about crypto-Mashiach?

Firstly, because I find it interesting how most of our readings of the Megillah have overlooked or twisted Esther’s brand of heroism.

Secondly, because Esther’s grim leadership toward the end offends modern sensibilities, but is not out of line with a core belief of most of Judaism, the belief in Mashiach and what she or he will accomplish. Also, most heterodox Jews support Jewish self-defence and self-determination. Esther is just enacting those ideals.

Thirdly, because I want to honour those who’ve gone before us and who have made many of our lives possible. We often like the idea that our ancestors were all Maccabees, who fought like lions to victory or death. But many of our ancestors were simply not Maccabees: they were heroines and heroes of the Esther variety. They sustained the world through keeping themselves (and us) alive. Like Esther, they will end up having played a part in redeeming the world, like the Maccabees or to a greater extent.

It is disgusting to me to see a common line of thought that excludes from heroism, for instance, the Conversos who lived undercover for ages to save their lives and the lives of their descendants. Their impact is felt to this day, and their memories are a blessing. They entered churches, sometimes muttering a prayer on the way in (to the Jewish and not Christian G-d). They did what many would consider apostasy, which is not covered under the principle of pikuach nefesh. Many contemporary Jews are descended from crypto-Jews. It’s not just Sabbateans who’ve falsely converted at some point.

I don’t think most of us would outright say that crypto-Jews are evil, or anything as overt as that. Many of us even engage in a bit of crypto-Jewishness ourselves, from time to time. But if our idea of the ethics of survival essentially smears crypto-Jews as cowards, we are in grave error. Esther should stand as a reminder of this. She triumphed, at a scale most of our heroines and heroes in Tanakh did not.

Bari Weiss, in How to Fight Anti-Semitism, calls Esther “assimilated,” which might make her a bit more relatable to contemporary Jews. Weiss reads Esther’s narrative as focussed on the moment when Esther has to gather the courage to go public with her Jewishness. To me, that’s not the main point of the Megillah, really. Esther only gets into the position for that moment to matter because of her crypto-Jewish status. However, Weiss’s use of the term “assimilated” could be helpful in thinking through how Esther’s story applies in our lives now. Most of us aren’t pretending to be ancient polytheistic monarchs, although I don’t have the numbers on that.

Ultimately, Esther needed to be open about being Jewish, so Weiss isn’t wrong on that, at all. The issue is that, had Esther been open all along - and Weiss is retelling the story to promote openness - we wouldn’t know who she was, or maybe we wouldn’t be here to know.

Get to the point about Hanukkah and Purim!

Okay, I’ll get there now. Traditionally, we have held that Purim will be the only holiday to celebrate in the Messianic Age. Go figure - it’s a template for Mashiach. Yet many of us later decided that Hanukkah also counts as permanent, since it’s the same type of holiday as Purim.

This interpretation makes sense to me. The holidays don’t just represent different types of antisemitism, but also the efficacy and heroism of different types of anti-antisemitism and deliverance. They’re the only holidays we’ll celebrate forever. We have to honour both the Hanukkah lions and the Esthers among us and among our ancestors.