NEWS: Happy Hanukkah, You Backwards Fundamentalist

CULTURE: Happy Hanukkah, You Backwards Fundamentalist

You know that saying "the medium is the message"? It implies that the way in which you express something can be even more important--or at least impacting--than the information you're actually attempting to share. I found myself meditating on that concept yesterday when I stumbled upon an article in Slate by Christopher Hitchens. Titled "Bah, Hanukkah", and subtitled, "The Holiday Celebrates the Triumph of Tribal Jewish Backwardness," the article is a scathing indictment of the Jewish holiday that began last night. I was shocked to find it on Slate, not because of its content, which is quite interesting and historically relevant, but because of its means of conveying said content--its tone or medium, so to speak.



Hitchens introduces Hanukkah as a holiday that celebrates "not the ignition of a light but the imposition of theocratic darkness," and goes on to insist that the Jewish people chose Jerusalem and "the grim old routines of the Torah" over Athens and "the schools of philosophy." In language that can only be described as aggressively hostile, Hitchens accuses the ancient Jews of "preferring fundamentalist thuggery to secularism." He declares that when the Jews repudiated Athens for Jerusalem "the development of the whole of humanity was terribly retarded." Quite a liability to burden one small people with, no? The whole of humanity? Terribly retarded? Please, give me a break.



Hitchens seems to miss his own point, even as he goes on to say that "to celebrate Hanukkah is to celebrate not just the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness but also the accidental birth of Judaism's bastard child in the shape of Christianity."



His final blow is his most dangerous and appalling:

To call Hanukkah, as it is commemorated and celebrated today, "a direct negation of the First Amendment" is anachronistic, irresponsible, and dangerous. Especially in a medium like this, where qualifications and explanations cannot be made in real time, and where the tone of the article speaks, in many ways, more loudly than the content, Hitchens is creating an opportunity for misunderstanding and hatred.



I understand his annoyance with the contrivances of the "holiday season." I can relate to his gripes about the problems of all of the monotheistic, Judeo-Christian religions. But it's one thing to present historical information sans emotion. It's one thing to offer people a chance to become enlightened, and it's another altogether to present irrational, anachronistic, emotionally fueled fumings that accomplish nothing other than angering, hurting, alienating, and misinforming readers.

bahahaaha hitchens is, as always, overblown, confrontational, a bit of a jerk, fairly drunk, and brilliantly awesome

fta:
"Epicurus and Democritus had brilliantly discovered that the world was made up of atoms, but who cares about a mere fact like that when there is miraculous oil to be goggled at by credulous peasants?"

i fucking love it

and what about a phallic christmas tree with a cherubic innocent angel perched on top is not insulting?

Fuck the holidays. I say we rename it Consumermas or something.

Plus as I understand it Hanukkah is about as important to Jews as St. Patricks day is to Christians...I may be sorely mistaken but that's what a Jewish girl told me...I think what they would be more worried about is the commercialization of Yom Kippur (of course anyone capable of that feat could probably sell you a pint of your own blood.)

This is drivel, Channukah isn't even an important holiday to most Jews. It has just been turned into a gift giving holiday, much like was done to Christmas. It's not much more than a marketing ploy to appeal to Jews. (I'm Jewish btw) Reform Jews see it mostly as a celebration of independence and a reason to give gifts. Orthodox Jews just see it as one more minor holiday. Rosh Hashana, Yom kipur, Simchat Tora, Sukot, those are all considered much more important holidays but no one even talks about them.

Edit: fucken beaten

Ah, he trashed Mother Teresa, too. I imagine the holiday will survive his attack.

I don't care much for organized religion, myself. But he has some kind of fixation on it. That, and he might improve circulation by trying to be controversial.

Pff that rubbish wasn't worth a comment, yet alone an entire bloody article about it. Who fucking cares? Celebrate Festivus if it makes you happy.

All this idealisation of the ancient greeks is also ridiculous. They had not one but thirteen gods to justify their exclusive class system just like everybody else through history.

Methinks a Semetic chap hath pissed in his Cheerios.

"It's a back to school holiday!"

"preferring fundamentalist thuggery to secularism"... Isn't this what monotheism is all about? Didn't realize the Jews had a monopoly on it, seems the Christians and the Muslims are pretty damn good at it too...

What about the cheap commercialization of Rohatsu (Buddha's Enlightenment Day, December 8th)???? All those guys dressed up like Buddha ringing bells in front of Ralph's. It's disgusting!

"It's the Lexus Rohatsu to Remember sales event..."

Chrissymas? HChunuka? Who cares?

I will purposely going to work on Dec 25th to get the hell away from all that crap.

That sounds kinda like Nietzsche's rantings in On the Genealogy of Morality.

Regardless...

Chappy Chanukkah ya'll!

Oh, don't worry. Hitchens doesn't give either of those religions quarter either. He's classy like that.

Hey, let's not forget about the commercialization of Sukkot. Fucking lulav lobby. And yeah, there was definitely no thuggery at all going on in ancient Greece.

Hutchens is clearly an idiot. Unfotunately, so many liberals see him as a voice of reason.

Yes, Channukah IS a minor holiday. It has become a much larger holiday, particularly for reformed or secular Jews. Yet to discount it on these grounds is ignoring the fact that it is a natural response to the barrage of Christmas celebrations. I see Christians complaining about some of their minor holidays being blow out of proportion, like St Valentine's day.

Back to Hutchens, celebrating the ancient Greeks above the "backward" Jews is ridiculous and merely an attempt to get his name out there as some sort of relevant commentator.

Fuck this guy.

First off, Channukah isnt some Christmas-wannabe holiday. For a lot of people it means a good deal. For one thing, it celebrates the Jews successfully fighting off an attempt at cultural genocide.

The Seleucid dynasty, under Antiochus, forbade Jewish practice and tried to force us to worship their gods and take on their cultural practices. They wouldnt let us sacrifice to our god (fuck Zeus, alright), they placed their idols in OUR temple, they looted it, killed a bunch of us, forbade circumcision (a cornerstone of Jewish culture), wouldnt let us teach our own religion to our own children, and pulled a host of other shit.

So instead of saying "thank you, oh wise Greek invaders, for destroying our culture and bringing in a new age of Enlightenment and pedastry" we fought back and, maybe for the first time until 1948, we actually won our independence (until Pompey anyways).

Yeah its no Yom Kippur and for good reason. This isnt a holiday that is between you and god, but its a celebration of a rare victory that has inspired jews to keep on fighting for more than two thousand years. It was important enough for the rabbis to endow it with special blessings to be recited.

1. Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah lights

2. Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who performed wondrous deeds for our ancestors, in those days, at this moment.

As a soldier living in and defending the Jewish state, coming face to face with pretty fucked up guys trying to destroy my culture, and as a guy who grew up in another country where I encountered a lot of anti-semitism growing up, this holdiday has a special importance to me as well.

I wonder if this fucker would have written "you know, those Native Americans were a bunch of savages, its a good thing we brought an enlightened civilization to them."

Damn double posts!

Well, somebody is obviously terribly retarded...

And btw, happy channukah from my buddies over in the Combat Engineers.

The only thing as irritating as a self-righteous, one-sided religious fundamentalist is a self-righteous, one-sided secularist. Neither give the time of day to differing points of view, they always have to shout and never let opponents get a word in, and I just wish they would all shut the fuck up.

I'm loving the comparison.

100% completely and totally right. At least Channukah has historical basings. Christmas is generally accepted to be the birthday of Jesus, yet there never was any official birth date mentioned. The Christians just made the holiday to combat the pagans, who were having their equinox celebration around December 25th. They must not have appreciated being left out of the orgies or something. The Christians even stole the idea of the Christmas tree from the Pagans, to them it was a symbol of the universe, with the roots being in ground, and the star representing the sky. That's why there's stars on Christmas trees, not because it's supposed to represent the star that the kings followed to get to Jesus.