Opinion | Hamas and the Lesson of Hanukkah

Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, began Dec. 7: two months after Hamas brutally murdered some 1,200 men, women and children in Israel. The terrorists’ atrocities will have a perverse effect. Thousands of Jews will celebrate the holiday as intended for the first time—not merely as a tradition, but as a somber and religious reflection of what it means to be Jewish.

The U.S. post-Oct. 7 is a different country for secular Jews, many of whom now yearn for deeper connections to their past and to the stories that have bound them as a people for millennia. Hanukkah celebrates one such timeless tale, whose history Hamas has given cause to recall and rehearse.