Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron reports, “In the days and weeks leading up to Hanukkah, which began Sunday (Dec. 2), many Jews have felt defeated as a steady wave of anti-Semitic incidents roiled the country.” Last week, a psychology professor in New York found swastikas spray-painted outside her office; two weeks ago, a mural honoring the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was vandalized on the campus of Duke University; three weeks ago, a man interrupted a performance of Fiddler on the Roof in Baltimore by yelling “Heil Hitler.” Shimron writes, “As they celebrate an ancient military victory, in which a band of Jewish rebels rose up against their Greek-Syrian oppressors and rededicated the temple in Jerusalem, many are still reeling from Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue shooting.”