Portside

Chanukah (or “Hanukah”) – “dedication” in Hebrew – is a Jewish holiday celebrating the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BCE after a victorious war. The story, told in the Book of the Maccabees, has never been deemed worthy of admission into the Jewish canon. Nonetheless, as Jews, we celebrate the minor festival decreed in this scroll. This year, Chanukah runs from sundown on December 25 through sundown on January 2.

Most are unfamiliar with the original story and know it only from secondary sources. As with many stories learned from “official” rather than original sources, the Chanukah story is heavily censored by authorities who would rather we not know too much of the history. This is much like the reality distortion in American history and civics textbooks and much like the heroic Zionist narratives permeating Jewish religious education, too many rabbinic sermons, and the American media.

In the familiar story, a brave band of guerrilla fighters, led by a group of brothers – “the Maccabees” – fought for religious freedom against the Seleucid Empire (a Greek state with one of its capitals in Syria), expelled the Greeks from the Jewish nation-state, and rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem. As with many such stories, it contains essentially accurate facts but does not embody truth.

While there was indeed a war, it was not exactly a war for religious freedom. Untold in the usual story is that the Maccabees’ first targets were Jews who had assimilated into Greek religion and society, adopted various Greek customs and morés, and took on what we might call an ancient version of a “Western” lifestyle (1 Maccabees 1:10-15, 41-43, 52-53; 1 Maccabees 2:17-24; 42-48).

Jewish assimilation into other cultures is not unique to the ancients. Most Jews in the United States have adopted American culture’s manner of dress, spoken language, political philosophies, and even modes of religious practice (or the absence of religious practice). We reason using Greek logic. Some of us console children upset that we don’t have Christmas by explaining that they get Chanukah gifts for eight days rather than just one or by bringing a “Chanukah bush” into our homes.

Such assimilation has always been anathema to Jewish fundamentalists. Today’s fundamentalists say that liberal Jews brought on the Nazi genocide. The Maccabees, though, went further: When some Jews obeyed the Seleucid king’s orders to bow to statues of Greek gods, the Maccabees hunted them down and slaughtered them. (1 Maccabees 3:1-9)

Only after this did the Maccabee fanatics turn their attention to the occupying Greek forces. (1 Maccabees 3:10-4:35) Once the Maccabees had driven the Seleucids from Jerusalem, they set about rededicating the Temple, including lighting the Temple lamps. (1 Maccabees 4:36-55) To celebrate, the Maccabees declared an eight-day festival, Chanukah. (1 Maccabees 4:52-59)

However, hundreds of years later, rabbis were troubled that the festival celebrated slaughter and militancy. To remedy this, although the original story contained no hint of miraculous oil (1 Maccabees 4:52-59), the rabbis writing the Talmud invented a story at the core of the narrative we know today: that although there was only enough undefiled oil to light the Temple lamps for one day, the oil miraculously burned for eight days. For centuries following this Talmudic revision, Chanukah was a minor holiday celebration during which we gave small gifts and lit candles on each of the festival’s eight nights.

However, in the late 19th century, a new, secular political movement emerged and turned the celebration on its head. Zionism used Chanukah as a propaganda tool. The “Festival of Light,” epitomized by its candles, became a celebration of masculinity and militarism. For example, at the Second World Zionist Congress in 1898, a Hungarian Zionist, Max Nordau, introduced the concept of Mukeljundanten, or “muscular Jewry,” calling for Zionism to “revive the ancient tradition of the warrior Maccabees.”

After the Holocaust, Zionists again propagandized Chanukah as a celebration of strength, militarism, and the glory of sacrificing one’s life for the Jewish nation. Following this line at a Chanukah candle lighting ceremony, Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed, “The Maccabees were not Palestinians, they were Jews, brothers, fighters. What heroism, what pride.”

Zionism has not stopped at figuratively invoking a warrior state. Today’s fundamentalist Zionists literally seek to fulfill the mission of Maccabee fanaticism: Just as the Maccabees of old rededicated the Second Temple in Jerusalem, today’s fanatics plot to build a Third Temple and resume animal sacrifice. This is not a fringe movement; they have the support of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Do we really want to celebrate the Maccabees? More to the point, do we want celebrate a festival corrupted by Zionism?

We need not surrender Chanukah to Zionism’s dark vision. We can reclaim, redeem, and rededicate our tradition. Our forebears celebrated this as a festival of light, and it is upon us to honor them by celebrating it as well. We can celebrate in a way that embodies truth: Just as the rabbis refocused Chanukah more than a millennium ago, we can focus on bringing light into darkness; we can honor the instruction in Deuteronomy, “. . . I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life . . . .”

We can choose life. We can choose to live our lives with light. We can choose – as did the rabbis who wrote the Talmud – to reject narratives that lead us into the shadow of death. We can choose to reject triumphalist but ultimately doomed nationalist/fundamentalist narratives that separate our lives from the lives of others.

We can choose to live Jewish lives joined with Palestinian lives. We can recognize that every Palestinian life is a victory over oppression, is a light that overcomes the darkness of Zionism. When we light the candles of the menorah, we will join our light to Palestinian light.

We choose light. We choose life. Each night, for eight nights, we can turn off artificial lighting and sit in stillness with our ancestors. Then we can light a shamash (helper) candle and use that to light the other candles: one the first night, two the second night . . . for eight nights. Perhaps, if we sit again in the stillness on the ninth night, a realization will come to us: We are the shamash. We will say, “Sheh-ahsa nisim l’ahvotaynu v’imotaynu ba-yomim hah-haym bahzmahn hahzeh” – that there were miracles in those days, and we will commit to work for miracles in these days.

Ken y’hi ratzon, May it be so.

Alan Wagman is a retired public defender and long-time advocate for human rights, social and economic justice, and peace. He is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a former treasurer of one New Mexico synagogue, former president of another, and a former board member of a national Jewish spiritual organization.

Thanks to the author for submitting this to Portside.