Wojtek

The story of Hanukah isn’t just a Jewish story. It speaks to any nation that has had to defend its right to preserve its faith and character. It is the belief that freedom is worth the sacrifice—and that identity, once surrendered, is rarely regained. That Maccabean instinct reverberates strongly here in Poland. Time and again, Poland chose resistance over erasure and identity over disappearance.  These lessons speak only too loudly today where the most violent expressions of antisemitism outside the Middle East aren’t occurring in Central Europe — certainly not here in Poland—but in cities of the world’s supposedly most advanced Western democracies.  Today’s Hanukkah massacre in Sydney shows again just how quickly Western civilization can give way to barbarism when societies lose confidence in their own values. Antisemitism spreads when it is excused, minimised —or rewarded by weak leaders who believe it can be appeased.