According to the available statistics. two-thirds of American Jews light candles at least once over the course of the Festival of Lights. Yet Cole Aronson suggests that the story of the Hasmoneans’ victory over an imperial power that wanted to enforce religious conformity—and also over those Jews who wanted to compromise with it—is remembered in very different ways:

If my back-of-the-envelope sociology is correct, two groups of American Jews celebrate Hanukkah for almost entirely different reasons. Orthodox Jews mostly know the full story of Hanukkah. . . . They’re under no illusions about its radically anti-assimilationist character. They find joy in Hanukkah in large part because of what a revered teacher of mine calls Hanukkah’s religious maximalism.

Many non-Orthodox American Jews, in my experience, mostly find joy in Hanukkah because the Jews defeated a mighty oppressor. Victimhood is a prized status. Hanukkah is a weeklong reprieve from the awkwardness of humanity’s oldest national victim occupying the West Bank while running the world’s most advanced military. Like Passover—the other most celebrated Jewish holiday in America—Hanukkah is about the weak winning freedom and justice from the strong.

But this special Jewish burning for justice will die out if decoupled from Jewish particularism. . . . That is, unless we Orthodox choose to leave our comfortable insularity, and persuade our brothers and sisters all over the country that the Lord has not forgotten about them, and still hopes for great things from all of us. Or unless anti-Semitism exiles Jews from the right universities, firms, banks, clubs, schools, and neighborhoods—and the answer to “Why do we remain Jews?” suddenly becomes, “because we have no choice.”

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.