Note: I forgot to post this on Chanukah but it’s still relevant.
The history behind the Jewish *festival of Chanukah has been a bit obscured.
The rabbis of the Mishnaic and Talmudic eras who established the festival tended to emphasize the miracle of the oil, how the victorious Hasmonean rebels found but one vessel of purified and sanctified oil in the Temple in the Jerusalem, just a day’s worth for the great Menorah, the Temple’s seven-branched candelabra, yet it burned for eight days, long enough to harvest and process new oil.
The rabbis emphasized the miracle over the military victory of the Hasmoneans, the priest Matityahu and his five sons, popularly known as the Maccabees, from the Hebrew word for hammer. The book of the Maccabees, though it can be found in many Jewish prayerbooks, was not made part of the official canon of the Tanach (Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim - Torah, Prophets, Writings). The haftarah, the portion from the Prophets that is read on Shabbat after the Torah reading, that the sages chose for the Shabbat the falls on Chanukah (which coincidentally happens to have been when I became a Bar Mitzvah 55 years ago this month) comes from the book of Zachariah, including the verse, “Not by military valor, nor by strength, but with My blessing, says HaShem”. That emphasis was likely because the rabbis were unhappy with how the Hasmoneans turned out. Not only did they reestablish the Jewish monarchy under their own rule despite the fact that Jewish law separated the priesthood from the role of kings, they also became corrupt, creating the conditions for Roman hegemony that eventually lead to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
Conversely, under the influence of political Zionism and the unexpected military success of the young state of Israel against more powerful Arab armies, in the 20th century the military victory of the Hasmoneans over the Seleucid Greeks gained more prominence in the minds of many Jews. The fact that the Seleucids were based in what is now Syria, one of the modern state of Israel’s military enemies made the association easier. Matityahu and his sons, particularly Judah, are seen as heroes. While Judah and his brother Elazar died in battle, the Hasmoneans did defeat the Seleucids over the course of 30 years, rededicated the Temple, and restored Jewish rule in the land of Israel, no little feat.
One thing obscured by both rabbinical and nationalist emphasis, is the fact that the Hasmoneans were not just fighting against foreign military and religious pressure. In many ways the Hasmonean war was a civil war between Torah observing Jews and those who embraced Hellenic Greek culture. Some Hellenist Jews, it is recorded, even tried to reverse their circumcisions. While the Seleucids tried to impose their culture on the Jews, they had many Jewish allies. The very first casualty in the Hasmonean war was a Jew who tried to sacrifice a pig to one of the Greek gods. Matityahu drew his sword and killed the man, sparking the revolt. When your liberal Jewish friends tell you that Chanukah is a holiday celebrating religious freedom, remind them about the guy sacrificing the swine. Where was his religious freedom?
No, Chanukah is about Jews being able to practice Judaism in their homeland, not the broader notion of religious freedom.
Before the civil war there was also what we today would call a culture war. The Hellenist Jews held the figurative high ground in that war. They were wealthy, powerful, connected, and dominated much of the society’s institutions, including the Temple. Priests who were faithful to the Torah, like Matityahu, were shunted aside. The Hellenists used their wealth and their power to spread Hellenic culture among the Jews, building gymnasiums and otherwise aping the Seleucid Greeks. Of course the Hellenists thought they held the intellectual and moral high ground as well and they had explanations of how their lifestyle and beliefs were consistent with their Jewish identity. After all, they were pretty much in charge and had the backing of a powerful empire.
Today, two months after Hamas unleashed its pogrom on the Jews in southern Israel, Jews once again find ourselves in the middle of both military and cultural wars. As in the times of the Maccabees, there is both a struggle against foreign aggression as well as an internal fight within the Jewish community.
I discussed the “As A Jew” Jews of If Not Now, Not In Our Name, and Jewish Voice for Peace in an earlier post. Those are the folks who literally wrap themselves in Jewish prayer shawls and condemn Israel for disproportionate responses, for “occupation”, “genocide”, and “apartheid”, really just for even existing. They call for a ceasefire to promote peace but what they really want is for Israel to lose. You can probably add the J Street lobbying group and about 150 other politically left wing organizations of Jews (I won’t call them “Jewish organizations” because very little of what they do is authentically Jewish) to the list of today’s Hellenist Jews. They knowingly give aid, assistance, and most importantly, political cover to those who would exterminate Jews, what some clever folks have dubbed “Jewface”. Some of those “As A Jew” Jews undoubtedly wrote the Chanukah greetings issued by congressional Jew haters like Rashida Tlaib. It’s telling that none of those messages mention either the military or religious aspects of the festival but rather some pareve, anodyne comments. They certainly don’t mention the Hellenist Jews’ part of the Chanukah story.
Whether it’s because of daddy issues, a desire to fit in with an intersectional left that demands Jewish suicide, or oikophobia, a pathological fear and hatred of the familiar (which shares a root with the word family) the Jews criticizing Israel and calling for what amounts to a unilateral ceasefire and surrender seem an awful lot like the Hellenist Jews in the story of Chanukah. I suppose that today’s version of a Pondus Judaeus is a keffiyah around the neck of a member of one of those groups.
*Like Purim, Chanukah is a chag, a minor festival, not a yom tov, a holy day, as those two festivals were enacted by rabbinical decree, not established in the Torah like the three pilgrimage holidays of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Weeks), and Sukkot (Booths) and the high holy days of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.