Nadene Goldfoot
What a surprise! Hannukkah or Chanukah is celebrated very early this year. Novermber 28th is the night of the 1st candle. It's due to the fact that we use a lunar calendar for our holidays. December 6th is the last day.
it's the Jewish 8 day celebration commemorating the victory of Judah the Maccabee (the hammerer) over Antiochus Epiphanes IV, the Greek Syrian, and the subsequent rededication of the Temple and altar.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes reigned from 175 to 163 BCE. He occupied Jerusalem, plundered the Temple treasure, and endeavored to Hellenize Judea by force in order to convert it into a reliable frontier-province. This brought about an uprising which Antiochus suppressed with great cruelty. Thousands of Jews were killed and many were sold into slavery. Antiochus brought gentile settlers into Jerusalem and fortified the ACRA as a stronghold of the Hellenizers to dominate the city. He now began a fierce religious persecution of the Jews, forbidding circumcision and observance of the Sabbath. He caused the desecrating of the Temple altar, setting up pagan altars in the provincial towns, and compelling the Jews to participate in pagan ceremonies. His excesses caused the HASMONEAN uprising.
Whether Antiochus' policy was directed at extermination of Judaism as a culture and a religion, though, is debatable on the grounds that his persecution was limited to Judea and Samaria (Jews in the diaspora were exempt), and that Antiochus was hardly an ideologically motivated Hellenizer. Erich S. Gruen suggests that, instead, he was driven more by pragmatics such as the need to gather income from Judea.
His son, Antiochus V (reigned from 164-162) continued the war against the Jews until 163 BCE when he granted them religious and some political autonomy in return for their acceptance of his rule.
Judah and his brothers assigned this period to praise of the Lord and thanksgiving. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the festival was linked with the miracle of the cruse of oil which burned for 8 days and the duty of kindling lights was instituted. One light is kindled on the 1st night and an extra one added each succeeding night.
The 8-branched lamp (menorah) constructed to hold these lights has often been the object of artistic design. Work is not prohibited. it is usual to spend the evenings in various games like spinning the dreidel.
Continuing into the future: Antiochus VII Sidetes (reigned from 138 to 128 BCE, reasserted the Seleucid claims on Judea. After an initial repulse in 138 BCE, he again invaded Judea and besieged Jerusalem in 135 and 134 BCE. John Hyrcanus was forced to surrender, destroy the walls of Jerusalem, cede his conquests outside Judea, and pay tribute; but after Antiochus VII's death in 129 BCE, he reasserted his independence.
John took Samaria in 107 BCE and razed it. It was restored by Pompey. John was the son of Simon, the Hasmonean and ruled from 135 to 104 BCE. Simon Thassi (Hebrew: שִׁמְעוֹן הַתַּסִּי died 135 BCE) was the second son of Mattathias and thus a member of the Hasmonean family. His father, Simon, was murdered and also his 2 brothers by his brother-in-law, Ptolemy, and so he escaped to Jerusalem, where he seized power before Ptolemy could gain control. He besieged Ptolemy in the fortress of Dok but had to desist on account of the sabbatical year: Ptolemy escaped after murdering John's mother, whom he had been holding as hostage. Ptolemy murdered Simon, his wife and his 2 sons.
Antiochus IX Cyzicenus reigned intermittently from 125 to 95 BCE and was severely defeated in 107 BCE when endeavoring to assist Samaria's Greek Syrians which was under siege by a Jewish army. Three cheers for the Jewish army! Samaria had gone through many hands.
The constitution of the Samaritans as a discrete community is generally seen as the outcome of a process of mutual estrangement between them and the Jews. They claim to be descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, but their land (northern Israel) had others added to it by Assyrians of an admixture on non-Israelite colonists. They called themselves the keepers of the law. While a great deal has been written in the attempt to delineate the circumstances of their “parting of the ways,” most scholars now consider that this development was not the result of a single occurrence, a schism so to speak, but rather a gradual historical process extending over several centuries. In this regard, the Hasmonean period (167–63 BCE), during which an independent Jewish kingdom was established in the land of Israel, is commonly regarded as a decisive and formative moment, if not a definitive one, in the emergence of a self-contained Samaritan identity.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/11/628/htm
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