A Hanukkah Lesson for America: Without Our Roots, the Tree of Liberty Dies

As Jews around the world light Hanukkah menorahs this week, they commemorate what may be the most explicitly Zionist holiday in the Jewish calendar.

The story of Hanukkah recounts the Maccabean Revolt of the second century C.E. After the Seleucid Greeks sought to suppress Jewish religious practice and identity, Jews fought to reclaim sovereignty in their homeland.

The Maccabees’ wanted the Jews to have independence in the land of Judea so that they could worship God according to the dictates of their conscience.

In other words, Hanukkah is a celebration of religious liberty and Jewish national liberation.

The Jewish people survived two millennia of statelessness, persecution, pogroms, expulsions and a holocaust by maintaining a deep connection to these biblical roots—a lesson America must heed in its time of political turmoil.

Even in times of darkness—including in defiance of the Nazi regime—the menorah’s light served as a beacon of hope and resilience, a reminder of the miracle of Jewish endurance against all odds.

Today, just as the Jewish state draws strength from its ancient connections to the Land and God of Israel, America will flourish only if we remain committed to the Judeo-Christian heritage that forms our nation’s foundation.

At its core, Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in the ancient Jewish homeland of Israel, where Jews have maintained a continuous presence for more than 3,300 years.

While Theodor Herzl established a formal Zionist political movement in the 1890s, the Zionist aspiration is as old as the Jewish people itself and foundational to Judaism.

It begins with God promising the Land of Israel to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which was fulfilled in the wake of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt.

Following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., the yearning to return to home and rebuild the Temple has been woven into the fabric of Jewish ritual and liturgy.

Every Passover seder and Yom Kippur service conclude with “Next year in Jerusalem.” Jews also pray facing Jerusalem.

Despite nearly 2,000 years of exile, the Jewish people’s enduring commitment to their foundational story and principles provides the foundation for Israel’s resilience today.

This same story of Jewish perseverance inspired the men and women who built America.

As our Heritage Foundation colleague Katie Pavlich recently observed, the “history of America and Israel didn’t start in 1948.

It goes back to 1776, when American rebels looked to the Promised Land, its foundational story, and were inspired to reject the British Empire in pursuit of their own nation.”

Benjamin Franklin’s proposal for America’s Great Seal would have depicted Moses extending his hand over the Red Sea causing it to overwhelm Pharoah, encircled by the motto: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

Likewise, in a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah in 1790, newly elected President George Washington drew parallels between America’s founding and the Israelites’ exodus, invoking “the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation.”

John Adams went even further. In a remarkable letter to the Jewish American patriot Mordecai Manuel Noah, Adams expressed explicit support for Jewish restoration to their homeland.

“I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites indeed as well disciplin’d as a French army—& marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it—For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.”

Adams’ sympathy for Jewish sovereignty reflected his profound respect for the Jews. He maintained they “have done more to civilize Men than any other Nation,” as the Jews had preserved and propagated “to all Mankind the Doctrine of a Supreme intelligent wise, almighty Sovereign of the Universe,” which he held to be “the great essential Principle of all Morality and consequently of all Civilization.”

Indeed, the concepts of covenant, rule of law, limited government, human dignity and justice that shape the American constitutional order stem from the biblical tradition. They are not arbitrary human constructs, but principles derived from the understanding that human beings are endowed by our Creator with inherent dignity and purpose.

Our country’s founders saw themselves as building on a foundation laid in ancient Israel, and drew from Hebrew scripture for models of governance and moral law. At the unveiling of the Pilgrimage Road at the City of David in Jerusalem earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio observed,

“It was here that God fulfilled His promise to His people.. that the lessons that formed the base rock and the foundations of our laws, of the principles upon which we decide what is right and what is wrong, was built upon. If you think about the things that today we, in civilized societies, use as rules to govern us, these things did not come because good people wrote them. They came because they were rooted in ancient teachings.”

The parallel between Israel and America is instructive. The Jewish state flourishes because of its people’s connection to their ancient heritage and founding principles. Similarly, America’s strength depends on our faithfulness to the principles that shaped our founding.

Those who seek to cut America off from its Judeo-Christian roots would destroy the tree of liberty itself. Just as a tree severed from its roots cannot long survive, nor, too, can a nation that abandons its founding principles.

The light of the Hanukkah menorah reminds us of a timeless truth. It reminds us thata people who maintain their connection to their roots will endure and flourish.

The story of Israel and the Jewish people demonstrate this truth.

America must learn—or relearn—the same lesson. Our strength and our future depend on remaining faithful to the Judeo-Christian heritage that made us a beacon of freedom and human dignity to the world.

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