Who's pretending? We know that's what we're doing. The real thing going on is that in the Diaspora we play up Hanukah because we're playing down the High Holy Days, Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot -- which are actually the religiously important holidays.
If you visit Israel, society basically shuts down for varying lengths of time around all of those, depending on how long the religiously prescribed holiday actually is, what restrictions it entails on observant lifestyles, and how quickly it's followed by another holiday.
If we tried this in the Diaspora, we'd all be fired for taking too much time off.
The Jews can still pretend that running a wire loop around an area of town changes the rules inside it?
Lol, definitely. I love when people try that stuff. Advanced metaphysical special pleading for the win!
1. Fundamentalist Islam is a "delusional superstition".
2. "Modern insurgent groups" -- the most famous of which all follow the said "delusional superstition" -- are the good guys.
3. Even though fundamentalist Islam is a "delusional superstition," "Islamophobic conspiracy theorists" are still "whacked out".
And Doctorow probably sees himself as religiously tolerant, despite all this. This is why you want to check on your beliefs from time to time, to make sure they're not contradictory.
(And I forgot to mention the part where Saudi Arabia's wealth comes from technology; Doctorow's using "technology" to mean Internet technology, high-bandwidth transmission, and the like, not oil wells and internal-combustion engines.)