This article challenges the common perception of Hanukkah as a solely celebratory holiday focused on lights. It delves into the historical context of the Maccabean Revolt, highlighting its significance as a story of Jewish resistance against foreign rule and a struggle for national sovereignty.
envy, turned one of the most dynamic and relevant stories of the Jewish tradition into one of the most tedious and anesthetized holidays imaginable. People are often surprised to learn that Hanukkah , popularly known as the “festival of lights,” features very little about lights or very little heavenly intervention.
Indeed, Maccabees 1 and 2 are hyper-nationalistic texts, principally concerned with the patriarch Mattathias and his five sons, who rose against Antiochus, the Hellenic king who desecrated the Temple, banned Jewish rituals, and levied excessive taxes on the people. When a messenger of the king travels to a village hoping to bribe clan leader Mattathias into making a sacrifice to the Greek gods, the old man refuses. Another Jew, hoping to calm down the situation, intercedes and volunteers to make the sacrifice instead. Well, Mattathias murders him on the spot and then kills the representative of the crown, for good measure. This sparks the revolt. The Maccabees, which does not mean “light” but “hammer,” conduct a protracted and bloody guerrilla war against the Hellenic and Jewish ruling elite. Really, we should be handing children toy swords, not dreidels, which have as much to do with Hanukkah as Santa Claus does with the birth of Jesus. Hanukkah celebrates the singular, millennialong relationship between Jews and the land of Israel. It is the story of a civil and cultural struggle for sovereignty over its institutions. It is perhaps the most explicitly Zionist story in the Jewish tradition. By the time the Maccabees rebellion broke out, Jerusalem had likely been a Jewish city for over 1,000 years. The reclamation of their historic homeland after being ruled by the Babylonians, Persians (the most tolerant of their rulers), and Greeks was a far bigger achievement than a one-day supply of oil lasting eigh
Hanukkah Maccabees Jewish History Zionism Resistance
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