Wednesday night began the celebration of Hanukkah, commemorating the Maccabean victory over the Seleucid Empire. The Maccabees, a loosely organized group of Jewish rebels revolted against the anti Jewish edicts of Antiochus that forbade Jews from practicing Judaism in any form or fashion. Hanukkah celebrates the miraculous \u2013 this band of Jewish rebels defeated the Greco-Syrian army and reclaimed the Temple. The story is one of the first recorded accounts of victory over religious persecution and as such, Hanukkah stands as holiday for all people not just Jews.<\/p>\n
Sadly, religious persecution still exists. As my friend and colleague Rabbi Sue Laikin Silberberg of Indiana University Hillel wrote, \u201cIt is ironic that as we begin our Hanukkah celebrations, anti-Semitism has reared its ugly head in Bloomington.\u00a0 Last week a rock was thrown through a window at the Chabad House.\u00a0 Over the Thanksgiving holiday, a rock was thrown through a window here at Hillel.\u00a0 On Monday, sacred Hebrew books were thrown into the toilets on several different floors of the main IU Wells Library.\u00a0 Yesterday (Tuesday) another rock was thrown through a window at the Chabad House and the glass case listing the Jewish Studies faculty was smashed in Goodbody Hall.\u201d Rabbi Silberberg goes on to write, \u201cWhile these acts are frightening and meant to intimidate, we can take great comfort in the fact that unlike the times of the Maccabees, the Indiana University and Bloomington community stand strongly in support of the Jewish community.\u00a0 There has been an outpouring of concern about these acts and support for the Jewish community.\u00a0 This type of behavior will NOT be tolerated on the IU campus or in Bloomington.\u201d<\/p>\n
This note affirms Butler Hillel\u2019s support of IU Hillel, IU Chabad, and the Jewish community of Bloomington. We also stand with all who denounce acts of hatred, violence and bigotry. We ask that all who stand for freedom in all its forms stand with us and with our friends in Bloomington. May the light of freedom penetrate into all corners of the world, and lift the darkness of tyranny until tyranny is no more, so that all may be free.<\/p>\n
-Rabbi Aaron Spiegel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wednesday night began the celebration of Hanukkah, commemorating the Maccabean victory over the Seleucid Empire. The Maccabees, a loosely organized group of Jewish rebels revolted against the anti Jewish edicts of Antiochus that forbade Jews from practicing Judaism in any form or fashion. Hanukkah celebrates the miraculous \u2013 this band of Jewish rebels defeated the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19618],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-news","count-0","even alt","author-BriannaNielsen","last"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}