Episode 67: Miracles in the dark. A response to Bondi.

Ask Haviv Anything

Haviv Rettig Gur

History

4.9 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This Hanukkah began in darkness, in the brutal massacre of Jews in Sydney, Australia. Our hearts are broken, but our light is not dimmed.

In this episode, we dive into the meaning of Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition and draw lessons from it for these painful times.

This episode is sponsored by Donna Silbert and Kevin Foley and dedicated to the memory of Thomas Irwin Glasser. Tom Glasser was murdered by Islamist terrorists as he worked at his desk in the south tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

At the time of his passing the New York Times said Tom's occupation form would have read: "philosophy major-track star-standup comic-restaurant owner-bartender-partner at Sandler O'Neill." A senior partner and head of mortgage-backed securities sales and trading at the Wall Street firm Sandler O'Neill, Tom was brilliantly funny and broadly loved throughout the bond trading community, by clients and competitors alike. A talented and fiercely competitive collegiate athlete, Tom earned a gold medal in track and field representing the United States at the 1981 Maccabiah Games. One of the best athletes ever to attend his beloved collegiate alma mater Haverford College, in Pennsylvania, Haverford honored him by naming its sports hall of fame the "Thomas Glasser '82 Hall of Achievement." The Glasser family established a scholarship at Haverford in Tom's honor.

A firm supporter of Israel and Jewish causes, had he lived Tom would have led from the front in the fight against antisemitism at Haverford College.

A devoted husband and father, Tom is forever mourned by his wife Meg, sons Dylan and Lukas, parents Anne and Gerry, sisters Laura and Margie, brothers-in-law Joel and Sam, numerous nieces and nephews and hundreds of friends.

If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.

Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everybody.
0:06.9	This episode is recorded on Sunday, December 14, the day of the massacre in Sydney, Australia.
0:14.2	So much to say, but it's hard to say anything.
0:17.6	It is a massacre of Jews that even when it ends, it never really ends.
0:23.8	All Jewish gatherings in Australia will now look different.
0:26.9	Jews will think differently about themselves.
0:29.7	It follows on the attack in Colorado and the attack in Washington, D.C.,
0:34.6	and, of course, the attack in Manchester.
0:38.2	There is a wholesale, persistent wave of killings of Jews.
0:46.1	We're in a new age, and it's an age in which, for well over a decade now,
0:51.4	every single synagogue on earth has security, often armed, outside its gates, anytime Jews gather to pray.
1:02.6	And when you talk about that, they tell you Jews are too much obsessed with being victims.
1:13.1	Jews always talk about how bad they have it,
1:17.2	and not how bad others have it,
1:18.7	and of course since Jews are the great and powerful movers and shakers of the earth,
1:23.3	how dare they?
1:26.7	There is a disease, and it has taken hold, and it has raised the fever, and it is not going away.
1:37.4	I don't ask people to pity Jews. I barely even ask people to protect Jews.
1:43.4	Australia has a responsibility to protect its Jews.
1:45.8	They're Australians.
1:48.1	But I come from a Zionist home.
1:51.6	We protect our own.
	...

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