On Monday, the second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is himself Jewish, attracted much criticism for a social-media post about Hanukkah that mangled the holiday’s story and its significance. Arynne Wexler provides a less anodyne understanding of the holiday, grounded in the two books of Maccabees, which, although excluded from the Jewish canon, are the festival’s ur-texts. Their message is summed up in the verse: “For it is better for us to die in battle, than to behold the calamities of our people and our sanctuary.” (1Maccabees 1, 3:59)

As Jewish identity frayed on the edges, the ruling Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes brought a new set of pressures. Unlike the previous rulers who had largely left Jewish culture and institutions alone, Antiochus directly targeted them. In one of his campaigns of persecution, Antiochus forced devout Jews to eat pork publicly as a display of cultural acceptance and submission. Famous acts of Jewish martyrdom come from this period, including when Antiochus commanded [a scribe named] Eleazar to participate in this public rebuke of Jewish observance. Instead, in a final act of defiance, Eleazar dramatically spit out the food as an example to the young Jews who were watching. He was dragged away, tortured, and killed. [2Maccabees 6:18–31]

Don’t ignore the lesson here. It’s an uncomfortable one for us today. It is much easier to apply laws and stories as convenient and ignore the ones that directly challenge our modern choices. The argument here is not that we should all be black hats; I myself am far from frum. But it is to contend that we like to convince ourselves it’s acceptable to give up on the very things that make us Jewish in order to survive. Our entire history as a people, and especially the story of Hanukkah, reminds us that freedom and survival only come when we fight for it.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”