I remind my family that we would have been on the losing side against the fundamentalists.

There is a continuing argument in Judaism regarding those who most devoutly adhere and those who don't. The winners at every stage of course declare that they are the true Jews. We don't, for example, see much evidence remaining of what must have been huge fights about Temple-based Judaism since it was replaced by Rabbinic Judaism and that is therefore per se the truth.

The current meanings of Hannukah are, of course, very different from the history. It's now about rededication, with an acceptance into this world in 8 days mirroring circumcision as marking God's handing over of life to us humans.

Yet his argument is that hannukah is forever tainted by it's origins. No matter how it has evolved, whether as a period of rededication, commercial consumption or the sort of general Jewish triumph over opression that s the basis for many of our holidays, Hannukah is bad.

This is where he continually jumps the shark. All he sees in religious expression is the bad. No understanding or acknowledgment of Talmudic tradtion and the importance of rational andlogical interpretation of laws.