the European-Israeli conflict, which started 2,300 years ago, is reaching new heights in hanukkah of 2024
reprints from the jerusalem post, by Gol Kalev, december 25, 2024
The assault on Judaism JERUSALEM Post column – Hanukkah/Christmas
See Gol Kalev’s Wall Street Journal op-ed- Israel and the International Criminal Court’s Threat to the U.S. (Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2025)
Hanukkah – Part II (2024)
The attempt to negate Judaism as an idea
Jerusalem Post, December 25, 2024
Hanukkah this year is different, it is not only about marking events in ancient history but also about understanding current events.
Indeed, Hanukkah marks the inception of the European-Israeli conflict, the world’s oldest feud, which started 2,300 years ago when the Greeks invaded Judea – and is reaching new heights today.
The Greek invasion was soon followed by another European invader, the Romans, who exiled the Jews from Judea, mostly to Europe. As Judaism transformed to accommodate new realities of life in exile (Judaism 2.0), so did European opposition to Judaism. Today, as Jews are back in Judea and Judaism is once again transforming, with Zionism becoming its organizing principle (Judaism 3.0), European opposition is adjusting and being redirected through the Jewish state.
Unlike previous Hanukkahs, which were about cherishing our heritage and thanking God for our unlikely survival, this year’s Hanukkah is about crafting defense strategies and praying for our survival, as a new lethal assault on Judaism is once again coming from the West and expanding at an alarming pace.
Throughout history, European assaults on Judaism have had both a physical and ideological component. Sometimes, the attempt was to eradicate Judaism by assassinating Jew-by-Jew, such as during the Holocaust in 20th-century Europe. At other times, it was centered on the ideological element by negating the concept of Judaism, such as in 15th-century Spain.
The events marked by Hanukkah were the standard of such ideological assault: The Greeks were not merely interested in land, taxes, and enslavement of the local population, as Gprevious invaders had been, they were interested in negating the idea of Judaism.
They did so by imposing their own European values (Hellanization). This was done by not only suppressing Jewish values and worship but also setting both the social and legal groundwork to make Jewish practices taboo. A key component of the Greek assault on Judaism was the desecration of the Jewish Temple, the anchor of Judaism in those times.
Similarly, today we are in the midst of a large-scale attempt to negate the idea of Judaism through the negation of the concept of the Jewish state and Zionism, the anchor of Judaism in our times.
Greek/Europe sphere-of-influence
The Greeks did not act alone but relied on a global propaganda machine they set up covering from theater to science, in order to spread their European “truths.” This way, groups that successfully became Europeanized could partake in the ideological assault against the one stubborn nation that chose to stick to its own values: the Jews.
Similarly, today Europe is not acting alone. “European” values have percolated through to the United States, challenging the core principles of the American Revolution, which was not just about a physical migration from Europe, but also about an ideological exodus away from old European dogmas.
This even reached the US Senate this year, as a prominent senator parroted the messages lauded by the Greeks and other European attackers throughout the centuries: The Jewish nation is a pariah opposed by the rest of the world. Not only that, measures must be taken to help the Jews stop being that pariah.
The message is clear, then and now: “Jews must obey!” If they stop being a pariah, the thinking goes, everything will be fine – in 2nd-century BC Judea and in 21st-century Judea.
But the Jews did not obey
The holiday of Hanukkah marks this Jewish disobedience, which led to their miraculous survival.
The Jews face similar circumstances today, yet it is not yet so obvious.
Jewish arrogance?
In briefings and talks that I hold as part of the US tour for my new book, The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat is Coming from the West, I get a common pushback:
Jews are the safest they have ever been since we now have a Jewish state recognized by the world’s nations and supported by the world’s superpower. I am told that while my ideas are provocative, they belong to a different era, not to a time when there is a sovereign Jewish state.
While such a comeback is understandable, I explain that when it comes to defending against a strategic threat, one must not be complacent, nor shackled by conventional wisdom. Indeed, we are all arrogant in thinking that the establishment of the Jewish state marks the end of the 2,300 years of European-Israeli conflict.
Quite the opposite: Theodor Herzl, the visionary of the Jewish state, stunned his cosmopolitan milieu when, after researching the topic, he concluded that European opposition to Judaism was chronic and will evolve based on changing European and Jewish circumstances.
Indeed, the Greek opposition to Judaism that we mark on Hanukkah was meant to end a few centuries later. This is because Europeans accepted the Jews’ monotheistic religion in the form of Christianity. Instead of Europeanizing the Jews, Europe became “Judaized.”
End of the European-Israeli conflict?
Did Europe’s Judaization through Christianity bring to an end the conflict between Europe and Jews? Not at all. Europe hijacked Christianity, drafting it in service of the obsessive persecution of the Jews.
Indeed, as Europeans became Christians, they began to slander Jews using religious currency. When Europeans abandoned Christianity, they slandered Jews through secular frameworks (during Herzl’s time), and when Europeans adapted modern values, such as human rights and International Law, they quickly hijacked those positive values and used them to persecute Jews by directing their attacks against the Jewish state.
The choice Jews face this Hanukkah
As the events leading to Hanukkah progressed, the Greeks gave Jews a choice. It was the same choice given to Jews today: Either voluntarily stop being that pariah opposed by the rest of the world, or the world will solve the issue for you:
Sanctions and arrest warrants were the threats the Jews faced in the lead-up to the events of Hanukkah in the 2nd century BC, and these are the threats in the lead-up to Hanukkah, 2024.
Brave Jews, led by the Maccabees, defied the Greek empire and the rest of the world and, through faith and resolve, miraculously survived. This is the essence of the holiday of Hanukkah.
Brave Jews today in Israel are doing the same, so that we can all celebrate Hanukkah in years to come.
The writer is the author of a new book, The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat Is Coming from the West, and is currently on tour in the US. He is chairman of the Judaism 3.0 Think Tank and author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism (Judaism-Zionism.com). His geopolitical articles are featured on EuropeAndJerusalem.com
France did not wait for its claims to Syria to be settled through diplomatic channels. Instead, it did what Herzl identified as a European obsession: make war. It invaded the nascent Arab kingdom in 1920 and deposed the king. Some decades later, Syrians rebelled against the French, and in a series of coups that followed, the Assad family took over in the 1970s and kept power for over 50 years, until last weeken
This article first appeared in the Jerusalem Post on December 25, 2024, in Gol Kalev’s new column: The Assault on Judaism
The column applies the ideas of his new book to today’s policy decisions:
France disrupting peace: In Syria (1920), in the West (2020s) (December 12, 2024)
The ICC Warrants: A Global Assault on Judaism (November 26, 2024)
The Assault on Judaism Penetrates Congress (November 20, 2024)
The West’s Attack on Judaism is a US National Security Issue (November 13, 2024)
Europe and Jerusalem has been featuring Gol Kalev’s geopolitical analysis since 2015: Europe and Jerusalem
Related Interviews with Gol Kalev
The Media is an actor in this war (American Sunrise)
The Assault on Judaism is coming from the West `(Washington Times)
Europe must decide: ICC or DC (Washington Times)
Western incitements against the Jewish state (American sunrise)
The Assault on Judaism was launched on October 14th, at an event hosted by the Begin Center in Jerusalem. See clips, read summary: Press Release
Watch the Full Event:
Purchase The Assault on Judaism on Amazon
For media inquiries and US Book Tour information: media@theassaultonjudaism.com
Related Jerusalem Post articles:
The assault on Judaism: Will the US hold Macron accountable as France takes the lead (Jerusalem Post, October 6, 2024)
Who decides: Who will live, who will die? (Jerusalem Post, October 7, 2024)
Response to antisemitism: Show the world that Judaism has become Zionism (Jerusalem Post, April 12, 2024)
Jerusalem Report corer: Gol Kalev\s new book
Read an excerpt and Summary of the Assault on Judaism: Jerusalem Report Cover – September 23, 2024
The cover the September 23, 2024 issue of the Jerusalem Report features Gol Kalev’s new book:
Reprints from The Jerusalem Report, September 23, 2024, By Gol Kalev
Judaism is facing its greatest survival challenge since the Jews were deported from Judea, as a nuanced, layered, yet fast-paced assault is coming from the West.
Every few centuries there is an attempt to eradicate Judaism, using destruction mechanisms that are relevant to the time. Sometimes, it is done through an attempt to kill Jews by Jews, such as in Europe during the 20th century and during the Crusades of the 12th century. Sometimes it is done through an attempt to destroy Judaism collectively, as an idea, such as in Spain during the 15th century and by the Greeks during the 2nd century BCE.
Today, Hamas, Iran, and its proxies are attempting to destroy Judaism Jew by Jew through a physical assault. However, they do not have the capabilities to eradicate Judaism. Those destruction mechanisms are housed in the West and are carried through an ideological assault on Judaism.
Like previous large-scale assaults, the attack is being channeled through the most relevant aspect of Judaism at the time. In our era, this aspect is Zionism, which has become the anchor of Judaism.
In my 2022 book Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism, I showed that we are in the midst of a historic transformation of Judaism. I identified Israel-bashing as an existential threat to the survival of Judaism. I argued that recognizing that we are in Judaism 3.0 could help counter the threat, as the Israel-basher must stay in Judaism 2.0 – the illusion that Judaism is merely a religion. This allows the attacker to express “zero tolerance to antisemitism” (the threat to Jews and Judaism in the 20th century), while partaking in Israel-bashing (the threat to Jews and Judaism in the 21st century).
The Jerusalem Report dedicated the cover of its 2022 New Year issue to the book, with an article titled “Judaism’s transformation to Zionism – Countering the Israel-bashing movement,”which summarized the main thesis of the book. Since then, October 7 turned Judaism 3.0 from a thesis to a depiction of day-to-day life.
In my new book, The Assault on Judaism, which is being released in September, I describe the path to destruction of Judaism that was triggered on October 7. I show the interdependence between the physical attack and the ideological attack that followed, including how inevitable it was for friendly Western governments, which ferociously defend the Jewish state from physical attack, to partake in the ideological assault on Judaism.
I show the gradual activation of the destruction mechanisms. This includes the ICC and the ICJ setting the legal groundwork for the arrest of Jews en masse, and of Western governments, such as France, pledging in advance their collaboration – just as they did 80 years ago, the last time arrest warrants were issued against Jews en masse.
I show how an ecosystem is being developed for collective destruction of Judaism through DAS – demoralization, attrition, and sanctions. I also show how just like in the previous large-scale assault, there is an understandable, yet laughable, attempt to carve out “Good Jews” (Jews in America) from “Bad Jews” (Jews in Israel/Jews in the IDF/Jews in settlements).
Throughout my analysis, I draw not only on lessons from previous large-scale assaults on Judaism but also on the wisdom of Theodor Herzl, whose frameworks are becoming more and more relevant today. Indeed, just as Herzl identified back then, the lethal part of today’s assault does not come from the hard-core Israel-bashers on the fringe but from mainstream people in positions of power, who control the destruction mechanism. Those “Israel-bashers lite,” some of whom are my friends, are certainly not “organic antisemites” but are influenced by the pressure generated by the Israel-basher movement.
The ideological assault on Judaism has turned into a threat to global stability, but it has been all but ignored. A paradigm shift is needed – abandoning old conceptions and crafting long-term and short-term defense strategies correlated to the existential threat.
This is what I do in the last few chapters of the book, focusing on different stops along the path to destruction of Judaism, and tailoring a different strategy to counter each of those stops. I am glad that the book is already making an impact, and grateful that some of those in governments and media partaking in the assault invited me to present the arguments in the book, even before it was published.
Now The Jerusalem Report readers have the opportunity to be among the first to read an edited excerpt from the overview to the section of the book that outlines the strategies to intercept the path of destruction of Judaism.
BOOK EXCERPT:
Disrupting the path to destruction
Putting together an effective defense strategy against a large-scale assault involves three basic elements: acknowledging that indeed there is an assault; determining who is committing the assault; and identifying the arena in which the assault is being carried out. In the October 7 physical assault on Judaism, it was quite clear: We were indeed under a large-scale assault. It was carried out by Hamas, and the arena was Gaza. The same clarity exists for the ideological assault on Judaism: We are indeed under a large-scale assault on Judaism. It is coming from the West, and the arena for the attack on Judaism is Zionism.
Point of attack on Judaism: Zionism
To state the obvious, Zionism is not the reason for the attack on Judaism. It is the vehicle through which the ideological assault on Judaism is being made. That is because Zionism has become the anchor of Judaism.
Historically, large-scale attacks on Judaism have always been carried out through the most relevant aspect of Judaism of that time. When Judaism was anchored in the Temple, the Greeks tried to eradicate Judaism by desecrating the Temple, and the Romans by burning it. When Jews were organized in insular communities and bound together through the religious aspect of Judaism, the assault on Judaism was carried out through its theological and religious aspects. When Jews were given rights and lived freely in Europe, the attack was on the emancipated Jews – their success, freedom, and power.
Now that the Jewish state was reestablished and is thriving, Israel-bashing and anti-Zionism have replaced traditional antisemitism as the vehicle of opposition to Judaism. This is quite natural, as more and more of the world’s touchpoints with Judaism are now through Israel and Zionism.
Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, wrote: “How can we tell the power of an idea? When we see that nobody can ignore it – whether he is for it or against it.”
Zionism today is the one aspect of Judaism that cannot be ignored, including in opposition. Indeed, criticism of Israel has become the number one Jewish-related activity for many American Jews, by far more than going to synagogue, thinking about the Holocaust, or engaging in Jewish cultural activities.
In previous chapters of the book, I outlined the path to the destruction of Judaism and showed that we are already far along this path. To intercept that path of destruction, we need to have a deep and nuanced understanding of the various stops along this path, and tailor a defense strategy for each of those steps:
• The hard-core Israel-bashers who are leading the assault on Judaism through “pro-Palestinian” activities and slander the Jewish state and its citizens
• The Israel-bashers lite, who may not be organic Israel-bashers but are influenced by incitement in the media and by the pressure of the hard-core Israeli-bashers
• Governments that ultimately have the capabilities to activate the destruction mechanism of Judaism but also have the capabilities to defend Judaism
Each group along this path has its unique motivations, characteristics, and vulnerabilities.
Hard-core Israel-bashers
The hard-core Israel-bashers are the ones who drive public opinion against the Jews. They are the face of the assault on Judaism. They carry the “From the river to the sea” banners and accuse the Jewish state of genocide. They are the most vocal part of the assault on Judaism. However, they do not possess the destruction mechanism.
While they are not a homogeneous group, the crux of that part of the assault on Judaism are young progressives, driven by DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) and woke values. They are characterized by strong conviction. To their credit, most of them act on a strong belief that they are doing the right thing, per their understanding of the world.
While they have strong convictions, most of them lack content. They are not acting based on firsthand experience or independent research but rather on secondhand sound bites they get from their social networks, their friends, and their “clergy” (be they progressive professors, liberal news organizations, popular social media influencers, or opinion leaders). They express their opposition to Judaism through being “pro-Palestinian,” which in their social circles is akin to being pro-women, pro-minorities, or pro-justice.
A Catalan separatist once told me that the primary problem of their separatist movement is that they are occupied by Spain and not by Israel. If they were occupied by Israel, the entire world would be pro-Catalan, and nobody would have ever heard of Palestine.
Indeed, most of those hard-core Israel-bashers waving a Palestinian flag could not find Palestine on a map. But that is utterly irrelevant.
Western pro-Palestinianism has become a culture, a fashion, and a social trend. This, for example, was expressed in the September 2023 University of Pennsylvania festival Palestine Writes. For an American to write about a longing for a physical Palestine that he has never been to, nor heard much about, is rather absurd. However, he can write about injustice, about how he can imagine life under occupation, about the travesty of oppression, the cancer of fascism, and the malaise of Zionism – and, by extension, of Judaism – which, after all, represents a counter-diversity, counter-inclusivity concept to him.
Indeed, hard-core Israel-bashers, expressed through the Western pro-Palestinian movement, are driven by their opposition to colonialism, racism, suppression of freedoms, and the violation of human rights. Palestinians are merely a vehicle.
The way to address this group is to demonstrate that the Western pro-Palestinian movement is a Western colonialist movement that hijacked the plight of Palestinians for its own benefit.
While the intention of many Western pro-Palestinians is good, they should be aware that when they put on their keffiyeh, wave the Palestinian flag and head to the protest, they are engaging in Islamophobia, bigotry, racism, and white colonialism.
Palestinians and pro-Palestinians are two different, competing movements. They have different long-term objectives, short-term goals, cultures, symbols, ethos, mottos, and banners. In the clash between the interests of pro-Palestinians and Palestinians, it is clear who wins. The Western pro-Palestinian movement is well funded, organized, and structured, with access to resources and power.
As will be discussed in Chapter 11, this is reflected in Western pro-Palestinians systematic suppression of basic Palestinian rights, such as freedom of employment, freedom of consumption, property rights, and even the right to control their assets.
Western pro-Palestinians even engage in an act of racism when they wear their keffiyeh. Indeed, the keffiyeh is today’s blackface – a demeaning stereotype of an Arab of a previous century – not of today. Such dehumanization continues when it comes with the Western pro-Palestinian attempt to deny Palestinian refugees in Gaza the right to choose whether to stay or flee the war zone. The Western pro-Palestinian movement is dependent on the misery of their Palestinian victims, and hence acts to perpetuate it, to the tune of millions of dollars.
The most effective way to defend against the attack from hard-core Israel-bashers is to bring the battle to them, and that is what Chapter 11 in the book describes: “Arena shifting: Bring the battle to the Israel-bashers’ turf.”
Israel-bashers lite
The Israel-bashers lite may have no organic interest in the assault on Judaism, but they are influenced by the pressures created by the hard-core Israel-bashers and act on it.
Unlike the hard-core Israel-bashers who show their opposition mostly through rhetoric, since they do not have a destruction mechanism, the Israel-bashers lite can assault Judaism in both rhetoric and actions – they are the ones who possess the destruction mechanisms of Judaism. They are normative people in government, media, and international organizations.
They are sensitive to public sentiment and to their assessment of where “the wind is blowing.” The politicians in this group need to get reelected; civil servants need to execute the will of those they serve; journalists need to provide information to the public that reflects the public sentiment. As that journalist who rationalized the distorted headline “Israel kills dozens of Palestinians” put it, “This is what Europeans want to hear.”
This group is not only normative, but they want to stay normative. They are therefore risk-averse and vulnerable to social pressures. They do not want to separate from the prevailing wisdoms and the presumed principles of their milieu. As a result, this group is easily influenced by incitement against the Jewish state. Israel-bashers lite are not “organic Israel-bashers”; they are “reactionary Israel-bashers.”
Unlike the hard-core Israel-basher, the one thing the normative Israel-bashers lite fear is being perceived as antisemites. While being anti-Zionist and an Israel-basher is socially acceptable and even encouraged in certain circles, being anti-Jewish is a career-ending taboo.
Israel-bashers lite operate in an echo chamber that assures them that their participation in the assault on Judaism is not antisemitic.
Once there is a broad recognition that Judaism has transformed and Zionism is now the anchor of Judaism, Israel-bashers lite will be deterred. In Chapter 12, I describe how Israel-bashers lite can come on their own to the realization that the world increasingly now views Israel-bashing and Jew-bashing as synonymous.
Governments
Hard-core Israel-bashers fueled the assault, and Israel-bashers lite activated the destruction mechanisms. However, Israel-bashers can only go so far down the path to eradicate Judaism. They need to engage the full power of governments.
This was the case in previous episodes of assault. The antisemitism ideology that became popular in Europe in the early 20th century was mostly in rhetoric until a government – the German government – stepped in. Haman’s strategy to eradicate the Jews in the Book of Esther would also been in theory only, had the Persian king not decided to engage the full force of the Persian government.
This is the case today. As it became clear in 2024 that European and other governments opted to participate in the contemporary assault on Judaism, it is now left up to the United States to intercept the path to the destruction of Judaism.
The good news is that those other governments that partake in the ideological assault are dependent on the United States for their economic, political, and national security. The US has enormous leverage.
Assault on Judaism as proxy for assault on America
Let’s be clear: The assault on Judaism is also a proxy for assault on Americanism. This is both conceptually, in an attempt to negate the principles of the American Revolution and its Judeo-Christian basis.
The infrastructure that is being set by the ICC and the ICJ to arrest Israeli soldiers and political leaders can also serve as a “plug and play” template to be used against American soldiers and political leaders.
Just as Iran views the Jewish state as “Little Satan” and attacks it in part as a proxy to attacking America – “Big Satan,” the same is with the ideological assault on Judaism. If Israel, which international military experts state has the most moral army in the world, is “Little war criminal,” America in the attackers’ view is “Big war criminal” and can be next.
Indeed, on May 28, 2024, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor revealed that her country was planning to do exactly that: The US is next, she promised. Similarly, the assault on Judaism destabilizes the world and triggered a series of unrelated conversation under the “pro-Palestinian” banner – from the nascent discussion of Spanish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula to disruption of the American higher education system.
For this and other reasons, the assault on Judaism should not be treated as a matter of antisemitism but as a US national security issue. As discussed in Chapter 13, the assault on Judaism is a way to “launder” an attempt to destabilize America.
If one can intercept the assault on Judaism, one prevents the subsequent assault on America.
The US has the ability to intercept the destruction mechanism of Judaism; for example, by sanctioning the ICC and those who collaborate with it.
This is not the first time the US faced such a decision. During the previous large-scale assault on Judaism in the 1940s, the US had the ability to intercept the destruction mechanism used at the time. President Franklin D. Roosevelt evaluated the proposal to disrupt those mechanisms in the context of the range of threats the United States was facing at the time.
For the United States, neutralizing the death camps where the Nazis carried out their plan to eradicate Judaism by killing Jew by Jew would have taken resources from other crucial operations. FDR made the prioritization call and allowed the path of destruction to continue.
In our era’s assault on Judaism, it is the reverse: Disrupting the destruction mechanisms of Judaism is defending America. As discussed, the assault on Judaism embodies both a short-term and a long-term threat to America.
Unlike in the 1940s, the United States today has the capability, capacity, and pressing national interest to disrupt the assault on Judaism on its multiple levels, using various tools at its disposal and in so doing, defining America. Chapter 13 discusses those tools and offers some simple and immediate measures the US government can take to disrupt the assault
Gol Kalev is author of Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat Is Coming from the West (TheAssaultonJudaism.com). He is chair of the Judaism 3.0 Think Tank and author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism (Judaism-Zionism. com).
Purchase The Assault on Judaism on Amazon
Europe and Jerusalem 