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December 12, 2023

Kamala's husband gets Hanukkah embarrassingly (but usefully) wrong UPDATED

By Andrea Widburg

Doug Emhoff is America’s “Second Gentleman” because he is married to Kamala Harris, America’s vice president. The Biden administration likes him because he’s amiable, leftist, and ostensibly Jewish. However, as his misbegotten Hanukkah tweet shows, he’s as Jewish as Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi are Catholic (or Kamala Harris is black)…which is to say, not at all. It’s a garment they pull on only when they need it politically.

Hanukkah celebrates two things: First, it celebrates a huge victory in the 2nd century B.C. when the small Jewish colony of Judea dealt a stunning military defeat to their Seleucid Greek overlords. Second, it celebrates the great miracle of the oil.

When the Jews regained access to and control over their Temple, they discovered that the Greeks had desecrated it. The purification ritual (or “re-dedification”) required eight days of holy oil, but the Jews had only one day’s worth. However, thanks to God’s hand, that one day of oil lasted for eight days, with the eight Hanukkah candles commemorating that eight-day miracle.

Put another way, Hanukkah is a story of triumph, both military and spiritual. However, the “Jewish” Doug Emhoff didn’t quite see it that way. To honor the holiday, he offered a very different narrative in a now-deleted tweet:

The story of Hanukkah and the story of the Jewish people has [sic] always been one [sic] of hope and resilience. In the Hanukkah story, the Jewish people were forced into hiding. No one thought they would survive or that the few drops of oil they had would last.

But they survived and the oil kept burning.

During those eight days in hiding, they recited their prayers and continued their traditions. That’s why Hanukkah means dedication. It was during those dark nights that the Maccabees dedicated themselves to maintaining hope and faith in the oil, each other, and their Judaism.

In these dark times, I think of that story.

The X community’s response was swift, merciless, and very amusing:

There’s another thing wrong with the post, and that’s the picture. You can see that a vast chasm separates the two candles in the menorah. That’s all wrong. The candles are supposed to be lit in regimental order, one immediately after the other, with another added each night. Also, the fact that one is burned down while the other is just lit shows that this was a completely staged event, with Emhoff himself ignorant of how to proceed.

Image: Doug Emhoff and Kamala Harris (edited). X screen grab.

Emhoff, of course, deserves all the mockery he’s receiving. Having said that, I’m actually quite pleased about his ludicrous Hanukkah post because it perfectly illustrates a point I’ve been trying to make for a very long time, and one that becomes more important in a time of rising antisemitism: Leftist Jews are “Jews In Name Only” (aka JINOS).

JINOS are engaged in a form of Kabuki theater that sees them claiming the trappings of Judaism while being ignorant about the Jewish faith and entirely dismissive of Jewish values. Their Judaism is a fashion and lifestyle statement rather than a set of values. Their holy book isn’t the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), nor is their understanding of those books further illuminated by the Talmud or the Midrash (the ancient and determinative collected works of rabbinical teachings).

For JINOS, the holy book is Das Kapital (even if they haven’t read it), the exegesis is in the Democrat party platform, and the Temple is leftist academia. Those are the teachings and institutions that guide them, all of which are grounded in Marxist thought, not Judaism. They are the equivalent of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, two loud and proud “Catholics” who embrace and foist on America the same DNC, Marxist, statist values as the JINOS.

Just as you cannot judge a book by its cover, it’s an error to take on faith a person’s statement that he is “Jewish,” “Catholic,” “Muslim,” or “Protestant Christian.” If that person is a leftist, that person’s real faith is the Gospel of Marx.

UPDATE: Below is an excellent segment from Caroline Glick, the pertinent point being her discussion about Hellenization.

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