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Virginia Festival Cancels Hanukkah Menorah Lighting over Israel-Hamas War
(United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula) The organizers of the Second Sundays Art and Music Festival in Williamsburg, Virginia, have canceled a menorah lighting scheduled for Dec 10, claiming they did not want to appear to choose sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict. The menorah lighting, to be led by a local community rabbi, had nothing to do with Israel or the conflict. The event organizer claimed that a Hanukkah celebration would send a message that the festival was "supporting the killing-bombing of thousands of men, women, and children," and offered to reinstate the event if it was done under a banner calling for a ceasefire. We should be very clear: it is antisemitic to hold Jews collectively responsible for Israel's policies and actions, and to require a political litmus test for Jews' participation in community events that have nothing to do with Israel. Those standards would never be applied to another community. Since October 7, we have repeatedly seen cases of Jewish people and institutions - including synagogues, Jewish homes and businesses - being targeted, sometimes violently, by those opposed to Israel or its actions. At a time of well-documented, rising antisemitism, the singling out and targeting of Jews is dangerous and harmful.