by Dr. Susan Block.      

It’s the third night of Hanukkah 2023 as we broadcast live from Bonoboville, and I’m feeling ambivalent, as I do every Hanukkah; loathing its religious militaristic story while loving its gifts, games, hot wax and flickering lights.  But this year, Zionist Israel’s ruthless, relentless bombardment of Gaza is far too dark for even the world’s largest menorah to brighten.

Sorry to still bewail these unsexy atrocities week after week, but Israel is still committing them—week after week.

This Hanukkah isn’t So Happy

On the day of this show, an old Catholic friend emails me, wishing Capt’n Max and me a “Happy Hanukkah… with lots of fun and good cheer.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “But sadly, this is not a ‘Happy Hanukkah’ with ‘lots of fun and good cheer,’ as Israel bombs the lights and the life out of Gaza. I’m sorry to have to respond this way to your sincere good wishes, but that’s the way it is this Hanukkah.”

Israel’s apartheid has long been brewing a toxic stew, stirring up the brutal 10/7 Hamas explosion, which—like 9/11 and Pearl Harbor—could have been prevented with a little more intelligence, as opposed to highly overrated Intelligence… or maybe a politically desperate and depraved “Bibi” Netanyahu just *let* it happen. Then came the monstrous vengeance, the slaughtering of thousands, the denial that there are any Palestinian “civilians,” not even children, the targeting of Palestinian doctors and poets in their hospitals and schools, bombing, bombing, bombing beyond war crimes (really, beyond words).

These are Zionist—not Jewish—crimes, but unfortunately, most non-Jews conflate Zionism with Judaism. This mistaken conflation, stoked by the Jewish Zionists—as well as American Christian Zionists—compels me to join my fellow “Jews for Peace” in crying “Not in Our Name!” to IDF bombing and Zionist apartheid, even though I have Zionist friends from high school days now living in Israel (who won’t follow my advice to leave), and I haven’t stopped caring about them, worried daily for their safety, as well as their sanity.

Antiochus Netanyahu

I grew up among Zionists (including these friends who “made Aliyah”), but I never felt their passion, never believed that Israel was *my* country, or even a place I wanted to live. Its gung-ho, GI-Judah, post-Six Day War military spirit was a turn-off; I just wanted to make love, not war. For years, I could ignore it, but as the Zionist cancer grew, I had to “come out” against it. Now with this so-called “war” against Hamas that is really a Palestinian massacre, it seems that Netanyahu has overtaken Antiochus, the brutal villain of the Hanukkah story.

Yes, the ancient Hanukkah story of the Jewish people under the occupation of the Syrian Greek Seleucid King Antiochus IV in 160 BC has telling parallels to the modern story of the Palestinian people under the occupation of Mad King Netanyahu (or as Max calls him, “Net Nut”) in 2023.

According to the first Book of Maccabees, Antiochus was a sadistic king, always trying to humiliate his Jewish subjects, making them bow to idols, eat pork and probably commit sexual perversities. Now we have Netanyahu’s IDF, humiliating, stripping down, blindfolding Guantanamo-style, and forcing Palestinians to kneel before the Almighty smartphones that broadcast their humiliation throughout the universe.

Even worse than Antiochus, Net Nut drops his bombs—high-tech Hanukkah gifts from his good friend, Genocide Joe—killing Palestinians en masse and individual by precious individual, even as this wanted-for-corruption, narcissistic Nut has the chutzpah to piously light the first candle of Hannukah 2023 with a paid-off Rabbi by the Western Wall.

Miracle of Peace

If I compare the Maccabees of Hanukkah to Hamas of Palestine, the Zionists would call me a self-hating Jew. I’m no fan of horrid Hamas, but Judah Maccabee and his brothers are the quintessential extremist religious fanatics, “terrorists,” in the eyes of their occupiers… kind of like Hamas.  

The ancient rabbis did not classify Hanukkah as a major Jewish holiday, maybe because it’s so GI-Judah. But it’s a Winter festival, so it piggybacks on Christmas and the gift-giving angle makes it good for capitalism.

Opening Hanukkah Candle-lighting Ceremony in “Massive Musical Orgy of Love, Lights and the Bill of Rights,” featuring Jules Jade and the Unlicensed Professionals. Photo: L’Erotique

But it’s much more than gifts and war. Like all winter holidays, Hanukkah stems from the original Winter Solstice, and the miracles that test their devotees’ willingness to believe, the most basic natural miracle being that a cold, dark, half-dead Earth is now coming alive with warmth and light, and Spring. The Christmas miracle is the virgin birth of “God” in human form, and the Miracle of Hanukkah is the “everlasting light,” the sacred lamp of the Jewish Temple, which had only enough oil to burn for 24 hours; yet it lasted eight days (thus the eight candles of the menorah), giving enough time for those terrorist/hero Maccabees to get fresh oil to replenish the eternal flame.

Speaking of oil, could Netanyahu and the Zionists be after a different kind of oil—or natural gas—in or off the shore of poor little rich Gaza? Perhaps oil is a motivating factor, as it often is, but it’s not 160 BC anymore or even 1948, and the whole world is watching on their devices.

This year’s hoped-for miracle, the one that I and so many wish for—whether actively marching in the streets or more passively witnessing from those ubiquitous devices—is that the Palestinian people be free of Zionist occupation, and that Jews—wherever we live—can once again be a people of peace and wisdom.

“It’s the Bonobo Way,” I say in my email and on the air, “the way of peace through the pleasure; the pleasure of sharing love, sex, food, medicine, knowledge and resources, the peace-inducing pleasure of seeing our own humanity in the eyes of the stranger.”

Thus, I give quite the earful to my poor well-meaning Catholic friend who only wanted to wish me a “Happy Hanukkah”—as well as to our audience on this show.

Candles for Palestine

Then I light the candles, singing the Hanukkah prayers—in my own quasi-Hebraic way—for Palestine, hoping my tears don’t douse the flames, any one of which could be the everlasting light of miracles that we all need.

Baruch atah Adonai elohenu melach ha’olam ashair k’dishanu b’mitzvotav l’hadliq nair shel Palestine.
Blessed art thou, O God of Gods, who makes us holy through your commandments, and commands us to light the candles for Palestine.

Singing my own version of the Hanukkah prayer, I think of those Zionists who say that an anti-Zionist Jew for Palestine like me can’t or shouldn’t celebrate Hanukkah because it’s a Zionist holiday. It’s true that Hanukkah celebrates military might (which isn’t my cup of Manischewitz), but telling me I can’t honor one of the holidays of my youth because I don’t agree with your politics is downright anti-Semitic. Turns out that Israeli and Christian Zionists are some of the worst anti-Semites around these days, maybe because they don’t separate politics from religion or Church from State.

Hot-Wax Hanukkah

I have always celebrated Hanukkah in my own way, and I always will. The games are fun, and it’s a mitzvah or “good deed” to have sex with your spouse on Hanukkah, a commandment that Max and I are very happy to fulfill.

But what I really love are the lights, the fire and the hot wax.

O hot wax, how I do love thee… having played with it since I was a pyrophiliac child, scolded not to burn the house down. Little did my good parents know, they were helping to stoke a fetish for the kinky pleasures of dripping hot wax skillfully on the beautiful bodies of consenting adults.  Back in sexier times, I held some fairly big bacchanalian Hot-Wax Hanukkah party shows, including Hanukkah Girls Gone Wild (2010), Massive Musical Orgy of Love, Lights & the Bill of Rights (2012), Hot Wax Chanuka in Bonoboville (2015), Xmas Eve Confessions with Hanuka Hot Wax (2016), Hot Wax Hanukkah & the Alabama Miracle (2017), Squirting Hot Wax Hanukkah (2018), FemDom Hot-Wax Hanukkah (2019) our Coronapocalyptic Hanukkah-Xmas Bedside Chat 2020, and last year’s Saturnalia-Hanukkah-Sonata, all free to see on DrSuzy.Tv.

I’m pretty sure these amazing, blazing bacchanals would get me burned at the stake by the religious Zionists who seem to prefer the bomb-fires of demolition to the pleasures of hot, dripping love, not war.

Creating Trauma in Real Time

What a tragedy—though also a time of great heroism—for Palestine. And what a shame, what a great sin, a Shanda as they say in Yiddish, for Israel. What a shame as well for America, providing bombs paid for with our taxes, supported with ghastly enthusiasm by our political representatives, the U.S. just vetoing the Security Council draft resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire. Shameful!

It seems that Hanukkah 2023 is a time of collective trauma for all thinking, caring non-Zionist Jews. It’s nothing like having your house reduced to rubble, your limbs blown off or other unspeakable horrors being visited upon Palestinians; still, it’s sad to witness the rituals and relics of my Judaic youth destroyed by Zionists. Like the Nazis ruined a perfectly beautiful Buddhist symbol of peace, turning it into the swastika of hate, now the Zionists are ruining the Star of David, turning it into a symbol of oppression.

Good Riddance Henry Kissinger

Speaking of murderous Zionists, one of the worst, Henry Kissinger just died—finally!—last week at age 101. I don’t light any candles or shed any tears for Kissinger on this show, but I do for the millions of his victims: 3 million+ Vietnamese, 2.5 million+ Cambodians, 200,000+ Laotians, 3 million+ Bangladeshis, 10,000+ Indians, 10,000+ Pakistanis, 15,000+ Egyptians, 3500+ Syrians, 6500+ Cypriots, 40,000+ Chileans, 30,000+ Argentinians, +10,000+ Zimbabweans, 60,000+ Mozambiqueans, 900,000+ Angolans, 11,000+ Guinea Bisseauans, 300,000+ East Timorians, 1,000,000+ Indonesians, 20,000+ western Saharans, 1,100,000+ Iraqis, and on and on into Hell.

Kissinger’s Cambodian massacre particularly incenses me, as it includes the murder of my late great friend Haing S. Ngor, a Cambodian gynecologist (so we often talked about sex), as well as an actor who won an Oscar for his portrayal of NY Times journalist Dith Pran in the 1984 cinematic masterpiece, The Killing Fields. One reason that Haing did such an amazing job playing Dith struggling through the mass death that Kissinger’s bombs and the subsequent Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge reign of terror had inflicted upon Cambodia, is that he went through the same sort of journey. My friend Spalding Gray, who played the “US Consul” in The Killing Fields, introduced me to Haing and we bonded as friends for several years before he was murdered in 1996, seemingly by Khmer Rouge in LA, and I blame his deeply tragic murder, along with the other millions listed above, on Kissinger.  

My late great Oscar-winning friend, Haing S. Ngor, star of “The Killing Fields” and one of Zionist war criminal Henry Kissinger’s many millions of victims.

After I light a candle for Haing, Maria calls in to exclaim that while other kids were watching Disney cartoons, she was loving The Killing Fields, and still watches it every year at least once a year.  

Well, Maria does have exceptional taste. She proclaims her “infinite” adoration for our shows and videos, as well as my prayer for Palestine. Compliments will get you everywhere on this show, and we invite Maria to sing two songs.

Of course, Maria’s singing voice is far better than mine and, being in a dreamy state, she sings David Bowie’s “Occasional Dream” and a truly award-winning rendition of Mama Cass’ “Dream a Little Dream of Me”—all a capella and dreamy as erotic hypnosis set to romantic music.

Speaking of which, Kissinger wasn’t *just* a war criminal, but also a killer of romance for saying “power is the greatest aphrodisiac.” That’s so wrong. Sure, powerful people get laid, but it’s usually a paid lay which makes their power more of a meal ticket than a turn-on.

Max can’t help but guffaw over the stories of Kissinger peeing in hallways which—though consenting adult golden showers can be groovy—are downright disgusting. Hygiene, please!

Side note: Dick Nixon’s aid John Erlichman thought Kissinger was Watergate informant “Deep Throat.” Nah, it was probably Mark Felt, and being a whistle blower was too honorable a role for “Nixon’s Metternich.” However, Kissinger’s obsession with Daniel Ellsberg whom he dubbed “the most dangerous man in America” for leaking the Pentagon Papers, probably helped to motivate the Watergate break-in itself.

Speak of the larynx, my “Deep Throat does LA” multi-media extravaganza experience is now online! Join me and Bonoboville On-the-Road across Town and down the hatch of history for the 50th Anniversary of Gerard Damiano’s DEEP THROAT, and you can read all about it on Counterpunch.

Rabbi Shmuley in a Towel

Antiochus tried to humiliate the Jews, and Netanyahu tries to humiliate the Palestinians, but many Super Zionists are just humiliating themselves. Take Super Zionist Rabbi Shmuley Boteach—please! I’m slightly embarrassed to confess that I interviewed Rabbi Shumley on my show back in 1997 about his book Kosher Sex, and we agreed on some things, like marital sex (we both think it’s good) and disagreed on others, like masturbation (he thinks it’s bad, and well, most of you know what I think ), and he invited Max and I to a wonderful Passover seder with his family.

I don’t remember his views on exhibitionism, but it’s against his Orthodox Lubavitcher branch of Hasidic Judaism’s rules of strict modesty. Nevertheless, he’s always been a bit of a show-off, so I wasn’t totally shocked to see the viral video of Rabbi Shmuley filming himself running half-naked and “terrified” down a hotel hallway in Tel Aviv.

Thanks for the share, Robbie Martin who, along with his famous and fantastic sister Abby Martin and her husband Mike Prysner, are providing the BEST Israel/Palestine coverage, along with our friends at Counterpunch.

It’s getting to the point where the only thing that makes sense about RFK jr wanting to hang out with this freak constantly is that RFK Jr went super deep at Epstein island https://t.co/SiTdBYYdP3

— HowIsEmpireBabbyFormed (@FluorescentGrey) December 4, 2023

So, there’s Rabbi Shmuley saying he didn’t have time to put on more than a (tiny) towel, but he’s got plenty of time to film his bare chest bouncing down the empty hotel hallway as he kvetches about how scared he is.

Being a sexologist, normally I’m fine with seeing folks half or fully naked. Free the nipple! Even religious folks. But when these same religious folks are hypocritically opposed to the sexual freedom of others, I’m not fine. And that’s what Rabbi Shmuley, Kosher Sex or not, has long been. Yet here he is, filming his towel-draped self for the pleasure and terror of his avid followers and Rabbi Voyeurs.

But seriously, how distasteful! Palestinians are being forced to disrobe—not to mention bombed relentlessly with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon’s finest, mostly lethal products—and here’s Rabbi Shmuley “terrified, running for [his] life” in a towel because he hears a siren. Even the cleaning woman looks bored and slightly grossed out as she points to the “Bomb Room” Shmuley demands to see, whereupon he then scurries to a stairwell and proclaims, “this is how Israelis are living,” as though sitting on a stairwell is comparable to Palestinians living in rubble, if they’re living at all.

And then there’s the slightly creepy fact that the people on that stairwell can look up and (nonconsensually) see the Rabbi’s balls.

Oy vey!

Vermin Time

Speaking of running, the Trumpus (much worse than the Krampus) is running for President just as he is running from the law (much like Netanyahu, his Zionist counterpart-in-crime), and he’s gaining ground even as he promises to bring fascism to America, calling lefties “vermin” just as Net Nut calls the Gazans “animals.”

 Oh, stop with the compliments, guys!

 The problem is the Trumpus menace is serious because Bomber Biden is being greeted in LA (and elsewhere) with “Genocide Joe has Got to Go,” just like folks chanted, “Hey, Hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” over that other Democrat president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, that squandered some decent domestic policies with a horrible war. And then we got Kissinger. So, things can get worse.

Censorship is certainly getting worse—in politics (especially if you support Palestine)—and in sex (especially if you’re a sexy lefty)—so we are taking META to arbitration. Stay tuned for further developments!

Speaking of free speech, FREE JULIAN ASSANGE. Free Palestine. Free us all.

© December 9,  2023 Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For speaking engagements, call 626-461-5950.