IT’S Hanukah, the Jewish festival of lights and enlightenment. At this time, we commemorate the Maccabean Revolt — a guerilla struggle by ordinary Jews for their right to self-determination against pressure to assimilate from Greek imperial authorities and the Hellenised priests of their own community. 

Of course this story is interpreted in many ways, and people from the whole range of Jewish views, conservative and liberal, reformist and revolutionary, nationalist and internationalist, like the rabbis arguing in ancient times, all assert that it validates their conflicting perspectives.

For radical Jews, this diversity and discussion, the argument and teasing out of ideas, is our precious heritage.