The holiday of Hanukkah, which begins this weekend, celebrates the victory of Jews committed to maintaining their unique traditions against the overwhelming cultural force of Hellenistic civilization—and the powerful empire behind it—with the lighting of candles. For Meir Soloveichik, it is thus an opportunity to contrast the Hellenic and Judaic attitudes toward fire:

Founded in 2004 by IDF veterans, Breaking the Silence aims to expose the supposed wrongdoings of the Israeli military in the West Bank. In her recent Hebrew-language book Who Do You Think You Are?, Yuli Novak, who served as the group’s director until 2017, reflects on the internal turmoil she has experienced in the ensuing years and explains how she came to reject Zionism altogether. Einat Wilf finds the book cliché-ridden and solipsistic, while the author comes across as a “petulant child.” Moreover, writes Wilf, Novak’s argument rests on false premises: