Celebrating Hannukkah: Knowing About the Worst; Antiochus Epiphanes IV---NOVEMBER 28 to DECEMBER 6 THIS YEAR

 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.                                                                                       

                                Bust of Antiochus IV at the Altes Museum in Berlin.

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.                    

                                    Ptolemy the murderer

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

 

Before the Roman Enemy, There Were the Greeks : Our Chanukah Story from JOSEPHUS

 Nadene Goldfoot      Another War: Jews fighting the Greeks                                

Antiochus IV Epiphanes was one of 13 Greek Kings of the House of Seleuces who ruled Syria in the Hellenistic period, reining from 175-163 BCE.   His father, Antiochus III,  transferred 2,000 Jewish families from Babylon to Lydia and Phrygia.  He captured Jerusalem in 198 BCE. Greek presence is attested from early on, and in fact, the name of Syria itself is from a Greek word for Assyria.The Greek presence in Syria began in the 7th century BCE and became more prominent during the Hellenistic period and when the Seleucid Empire was centered there. Today, there is a Greek community of about 4,500 in Syria, most of whom have Syrian nationality and who live mainly in Aleppo (the country's main trading and financial centre),  Aleppo had been populated by Jews since then up until a few years ago.  

                                                                                  

Antiochus IV was on his 2nd try to attack Egypt but was turned back by Rome, so he then went to Jerusalem and occupied it.  He plundered the Temple treasure and tried to Hellenize Judea by force in order to convert it into a reliable frontier province.  This brought about a great rising which Antiochus suppressed with great cruelty;  thousands of Jews were killed and many sold into slavery.  

Ptolemy I
At one time between 186-145 BCE, Antiochus quarreled with the 6th Ptolemy, the Greek king of Ptolemaic Egypt  about his right to the whole country of Syria.  At this time, a great sedition came over the men of power in Judea, and they had a contention about obtaining the government;   with each one vying for power. 

                                                

In 175 BCE, conflict broke out between High Priest Onias III (who opposed Hellenization and favoured the Ptolemies) and his son Jason (who favoured Hellenisation and the Seleucids). A period of political intrigue followed, with both Jason and Menelaus bribing the king to win the High Priesthood, and accusations of murder of competing contenders for the title. The result was a brief civil war. The Tobiads, a philo-Hellenistic party, succeeded in placing Jason into the powerful position of High Priest. He established an arena for public games close by the Temple. The high priest, Jason, converted Jerusalem into a Greek polis replete with gymnasium and ephebeion (2 Maccabees 4).

According to writer, General Josephus,  Onias, one of the high priests, won out against Jason  and kicked out the sons of Tobias from the Jerusalem.  Joseph was one of the sons of Tobias and nephew of Onias.  Onias I had refused to pay his taxes to Ptolemy III.  That made the governor of Jerusalem threaten to destroy Jerusalem.   Joseph heard about it and scolded his Uncle Onias for putting Jerusalem in such danger.  Onias let Joseph go to Alexandria, Egypt to pacify the king.  Joseph found out when he arrived that he needed a lot of money to gain high favor in the court.  He had to go to Samaria to his friends and get a loan. He did, and was later made the tax collector.  Onias then went to Antiochus IV and begged him to make use of them for his leaders.  Then they could make an expedition into Judea.  

The king, thinking this a great idea, complied and came upon the Jews with a great army, and took their city by force, and slew a multitude of men of those that favoured Ptolemy, and sent out his soldiers to plunder them without mercy.  He also spoiled the Temple, and put a stop to the constant practice of offering a daily sacrifice of expiation for 3 years and 6 months.  (Expiation "a religious act, by which satisfaction or atonement is made for the commission of some crime, the guilt done away,)                                     

But Onias, the high priest, fled to Ptolemy, and received a place from him in the Nemus of Heliopolis ( a major city , the capital of ancient Egypt), where he built a city resembling Jerusalem, and a Temple that was like Jerusalem's Temple.       

According to I and II Maccabees, the priestly family of Mattathias (Mattitiyahu in Hebrew), which came to be known as the Maccabees, called the people forth to holy war against the Seleucids.

                                             

  Mattathias' sons, Judas (Yehuda), Jonathan (Yonoson/Yonatan), and Simon (Shimon) began a military campaign, initially with disastrous results: one thousand Jewish men, women, and children were killed by Seleucid troops because they refused to fight, even in self-defence, on the Sabbath. Other Jews then reasoned that they must fight when attacked, even on the Sabbath. The institution of guerrilla warfare practices by Judah over several years led to victory against the Seleucids:                                 

It was now, in the fall of 165, that Judah's successes began to disturb the Greek central government. He appears to have controlled the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and thus to have cut off the royal party in Acra from direct communication with the sea and thus with the government. It is significant that this time the Syrian troops, under the leadership of the governor-general Lysias, took the southerly route, by way of Idumea.

Towards the end of 164, Judah the Maccabee felt strong enough to enter Jerusalem and the formal religious worship of Yahweh was re-established. The feast of Hanukkah was instituted to commemorate the recovery of the temple. This was the Hasmonean Period ruling Judea.  Josephus tells what happened.  

Antiochus, however, remembering his struggles in the fight, decided to compel the Jews to dissolve the laws of their country, and to keep their infants uncircumcized, and to sacrifice swine's  flesh upon the altar;  against which they all opposed.  Some even had to be put to death.  Bacchides, who guarded the fortresses, became even more barbaric than usual, and indulged in all sorts of wickedness and tormented the worthiest of the inhabitants, man by man, and threatened their city every day with open destruction till at length he provoked the poor sufferers by the extremity of his wicked doing, to avenge themselves.

                                              

Matthias, the son of Asamoneus, one of the priests who lived in a village called Modin, armed himself, together with his own family, which had 5 sons of his in it, and slew Bacchides with daggers, and thereupon, out of the fear of the many garrisons of the Greeks, he fled to the mountains, and so many of the people followed him, that he was encouraged to come down from the mountains, and to fight Antiochus's generals, when he beat them, and drove them out of Judea. So he joined the government and became the prince of his own people by their own free consent, and then died, leaving the government to Judas, his eldest son.                                             

 Josephus was born in about 38 CE, dying in 100 CE.  Romans attacked Galilee in 67, he directed the resistance and was besieged in Jotapata, but when the city was captured, he went over to the Romans and called himself Flavius, the family name of Emperor Vespasian.  He went with Vespasian and Titus during the siege of Jerusalem and tried to persuade the Jews to leave their resistance.  After the crushing of the revolt, he was given some confiscated estates in Judea, but lived in Rome instead. 

Titus Flavius Josephus, born Yosef ben Matityahu ha Cohen was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian, best known for The Jewish War, who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry. Josephus, as he is known to us, a Jewish general whose life was spared by becoming their historical writer, considered a traitor by many Jews, said, "Our city of Jerusalem had arrived at a higher degree of felicity (happiness)  than any other city under the Roman government, and yet at last fell into the sorest calamities again.   Accordingly it appears to me the the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the  Jews, are not so considerable as they were;  while the authors of them were not foreigners neither.  This makes it impossible for me to contain my lamentations.......However, I may justly blame  the learned men among the Greeks...they also write new histories about the Assyrians and Medes as if the ancient writers had not described their affairs as they ought to have done...everyone took upon them to write what happened in his own time."  So I find that Josephus had many details in his special book than in any other history I have read.

The Pyrrhic War (280–275 BCE) was largely fought between the Roman Republic and Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who had been asked by the people of the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy to help them in their war against the Romans.  After several years of campaigning there (278–275 BCE), Pyrrhus returned to Italy in 275 BCE, where the last battle of the war was fought, ending in Roman victory. Following this, Pyrrhus returned to Epirus, ending the war. Three years later, in 272 BC, the Romans captured Tarentum.

Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BCE by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great.  Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea into tetrarchies in 6 CE, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis.

The first is the revolt of 167-160 BC, when Judah Maccabee led an uprising against the Seleucid Greek rulers of Judaea, painted in Jewish memory as a virtuous struggle against persecuting overlords.

There was about a 100 pause between wars for the Jews between the Greeks and the Romans.  

Rome had occupied Judea in 63 BCE and again in 66 CE.  The province of Judea was the scene of unrest  in 6 CE during the Census of Quirinius, the crucifixion of Jesus circa 30–33 CE, and several wars, known as the Jewish–Roman wars, were fought during its existence.

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Book:  Josephus, by Whiston

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_VI_Philometor 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopolis_(ancient_Egypt)

https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/E/expiation.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasmonean_dynasty

The Major Hannukah Story: Judah's Occupation By Greek Syrians Leading To Roman Occupation -

Nadene Goldfoot                                       

King Hoshea of Israel  in 721 BCE getting ready to attack the Assyrians

Israel had been a large Empire which later divided in a civil disagreement which turned into a small war. When they divided they were the northern part- Israel and the southern part-Judah.  The northern half of Israel, later called Samaria (name of their capital and surrounding area) , had been lost to Judah when the Assyrians had attacked them and took them away from 722 to 721 BCE, leaving Judah exposed.  The Assyrians annexed Israel and deported 27,290 Israelites to Assyria and Media.  Then they replaced them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.  Before that, Israel ruled itself when king Solomon had died in 920 BCE.   Though Israel  had broken away from David and Solomon's Judean dynasty, they had their own kings with Hoshea being their last one who reigned from 730 to 721 BCE. 

 Judeans had been seized by  the Babylonians from 597 to 586 BCE and taken to Babylonia by Nebuchadnezzar.  They were able to finally return in 538 BCE and rebuilt their Temple that King Solomon and spent so much time and labor building.  

                                                                 

King Zedekiah of Judah, last king in 586 BCE

  Judah had kept up their own state with kings after Solomon had died in 920 BCE until 586 BCE with Zedekiah being Judah's last king from 597 to 586 BCE.
                                                                             

Problems were inevitable when Alexander the Great died in 322 BCE when only 29 years old who had been the king of Macedonia, an empire now divided into Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia.  The people spoke Greek.    He had made a great impression on the Jews.  When he visited Jerusalem, he gave great honor to the high priest, Jaddua, and gave the Jews many privileges.   He was not married and had no children, so didn't leave his lands to any family members.  His generals then divided Alexander's empire up among themselves.   The Greeks believed in many gods but did believe in a god.  Alexander admired the Jewish religion.  The Jews loved him.  This is why so many used his name for their own children.  It was adopted as a surname often when that became the naming laws.
Most of the 60,000 Jews living in the Greek area of Macedonia were exterminated during WWII. 
                                     
 Alexander the Great, a Greek, conquered Syria in 332 BCE and, after his death in 323 BCE, the Seleucid Empire ruled the region.   That was one of Alexander's generals, Seleucus Nicator who then established his Hellenistic royal dynasty of the Seleucids.  

Antiochus III settled Babylonian Jews in the cities of Phrygia and Lydia and entrusted them with an important role in securing those regions of his empire.  He conquered the Jewish land by 200 BCE and granted privileges to the Temple.

The Greek Syrians had been occupying  Judah since 174 BCE and held the land including Jerusalem till 163 BCE.  They chose kings over the Jewish land. 
                                                           

Antiochus IV Epiphanes was their new king, who waged a bloody war upon the Jews, and  had imposed his own Hellenic cult on them which sparked a national rebellion.  It was a threat not only to all their lives, but also to their spiritual existence.  

After years of Greek domination, Jews were beginning to be a part of the Greek culture and its hedonistic pagan way of life.  They had become Jewish Hellenists and were willing pawns in Antiochus' scheme to obliterate all traces of their own Jewish religion.  The 2nd Temple was invaded, desecrated and robbed of all its treasures.  Many Jews were massacred and any lucky survivors were heavily taxed.  Antiochus put an idol of Zeus on the holy altar and forced the population to bow before it under penalty of death.  He forbid the Jews to observe their Sabbath and the rite of circumcision. Antiochus proclaimed himself a god, and took the name ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES---the DIVINE.  Even his own Greek Syrians mocked him as ANTIOCHUS EPIMANES--the madman!  

In every town and city in Judah, altars were erected with statues of Greek gods and goddesses.  Soldiers rounded up Jews and forced them to make offerings to their gods and engage in other immoral acts customary to the Greeks.  The Jews did not resist at this point.  

                                                                         

Yehuda "Judah" Maccabee, the Hammerer
used guerilla warfare against the Greek Syrians.
Numbering 6,000, they defeated the armed battaion of
47,000 Syrians.  

Back in about 166 BCE, there was a priestly family, the Hasmoneans, founded by Mattathias of the town of Modiin.  Their ancestor, a priest, descended from Aaron, brother of Moses, had been named Hashmon.   Mattathias had 5 sons:  Judah the Maccabee, Jonathan, Simon, John and Eleazar.

In Modiin, a small village a few miles east of Jerusalem, Mattityahu challenged the Greek soldiers and those who were acquiescing to their demands.  With his 5 sons backing him, he attacked the troops, slew the idolators, and destroyed the idol.  They cried out, "ALL WHO ARE WITH G-D, FOLLOW ME!"  
                                                   

Remembering this history every year with
the celebration of Hanukkah and lighting
a menorah.  

Then these brave activists retreated to the hills, gathered more forces and commenced to overthrow the oppression of Antiochus and his men.  

The Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, had attacked Judah and was about to occupy the Jewish land.  The Hasmoneans fought a number of battles against them, and in 164 BCE, Judah captured Jerusalem back from the Syrians. Then they held raids to rescue the Jews of Ammon, Idumea, Gilead and Galilee.  

 Eleazar (5)  was killed in 163 BCE at Bet Zechariah where they were finally defeated.  They had been able to get better terms for their religious freedom, though due to  the Syrian distractions.  
                                                       

Judah (1)  continued the fight for political freedom as well, and Judah fell at Elasa in 160 BCE. 

John (4) was murdered shortly afterwards and Jonathan (2) took over the leadership.  He was able to secure the high priesthood in 152 BCE and then the governorship of Judah by 150 BCE.  

Simon (3) got the exemption from tribute in 147 BCE.  He was confirmed by the people as the hereditary high priest, the ethnarch and general in 142 BCE.  Then he was murdered in 135 BCE. 
                                                                           

Seleucides lost to the Judeans

That ended in the expulsion of the Seleucides and the establishent of Judah as an independent Jewish kingdom once again, but this time under their own Hasmonean dynasty of Judah.

The Hasmonians converted Moabites, Edomites and Ammonites to Judaism forcibly as well as the northern kingdom of Israel, now populated with other peoples that the foreign leaders had brought in.  
The pragmatic materialism of Greek culture left no room for the Jews'special relationship with G-d.  The Syrian-Greek desecration of the Holy Temple was another example of their determination to destroy the sanctity of Jewish life.  

Jews had freed themselves from the Seleucids.    Antiochus VII Sidetes then invaded the country in the time of Simon the Hasmonean, the Judean chosen ethnarch (ruler of the people) in 138 BCE and again with greater success in 134 BCE.  When Antiochus died in 129 BCE, the Jews revolted, and the Seleucid rule in the land ended in 128 BCE.

Simon's son, John Hyrcanus had succeed him and suffered a crushing defeat by Antiochus VII Sidetes in that Jerusalem was taken by the Syrians after a long siege and Judea once more became a Seleucid province.  After the defeat of Antiochus in his war against Parthia, John launched a successful offensive against Transjordan.  Samaria and Idumea which marked the transition of the Hashmoneans to a semi-hellenized secular military dynasty.  This led to his repudiation of the Pharisees and his siding to the aristocratic Sadducee party.  He was succeeded by his sons Judah Aristobulus in 105  to 194 BCE and Alexander Yannai in 104 to 76 BCE.  Alexander was the first to use a royal title.  He set up a standing mercenary army and conquered  Transjordan, Idumea and the coastal plain.   The Pharisees opposed his war policy and this led to a civil war in which Alexander was the victor after a very bloody struggle.  

The Pharisees were in the ascendant during the reign of his widow, Salome Alexandra from 76  to 69 BCE.  When she died, the Hasmonean dynasty declined.  There had been strife between her sons Hyrcans II, ethnarch appointed by Julius Caesar and Aristobulus II which led to the intervention and eventual domination of Antipater and his son, Herod who had Roman assistance.  

In Syria, "the Parthians reigned until, weakened by repeated attacks by the Scythians, their empire fell.  Tigranes the Great (140-55 BCE) of the Kingdom of Armenia in Anatolia was welcomed by the people of Syria as a liberator in 83 BCE and held the land as part of his kingdom until Pompey the Great took Antioch in 64 BCE and annexed Syria as a Roman province. 
                                                        

"In 63 BCE the Roman General Pompey conquered Jerusalem and made the Jewish kingdom a client state of Rome.  

Hyrcanus remained a puppet while Aristobulus II and his sons, Alexander and Antigonus Mattathias failed to gain any power.  

Hyrcanus' granddaughter, Mariamne, daughter of Alexander, son of Aristobulus II,  married Herod and was his 2nd wife, mother of his 3 sons and 2 daughters,  but was put to death by him in 29 BCE.  Also killed were the surviving Hasmoneans viz.  Aristobulus III in 35 BCE, Hyrcanus II in 30 BCE, and Mariamne's son, Alexander and Aristobulus in 7 BCE.  

Herod's sister, Salome, had never stopped inciting the king against Mariamne  and had finally convinced him that she was an adulteress which was why he had her killed.  
                                                          

Herod
Son of Antipater the Idumean (Edom) or Mt. Seir, mountainous land, descendants of Esau, hunters and Cypros, the Nabatean mother. Nabateans also lived Edom in 6th century BCE with their capital in Petra;  nomads who learned farming and water conservation. They were Arabs.  
The Edomites had been conquered by John Hyrcanus  who ruled from 135 to 104 BCE, and forced to convert to Judaism. 

By 40-39 BCE, Herod the Great was appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate. His son, Archelaus, was appointed ethnarch by  Augustus. Archelaus's mother was Malthace, the Samaritan.  Herod had named Archaelaus in his will as the ruler over the greater part of his kingdom as king.  When Archelaus went to Rome to get Augustus' ratification of the will, disturbances broke out all over Judah and a Jewish delegation asked Augustus to dethrone the Herodian dynasty.  Augustus took away the title of king but named him as an ethnarch of Judea, Idumea and Samaria.  He ruled severely from 4 BCE to 6 CE, causing Augustus to remove him from office.  He was exiled to Gaul where he died in 16 CE.
                                                        
                                                             

Herod's kingdom 4 BCE

In the year 6 CE, the last ethnarch of Judea was deposed by the emperor Augustus.  His territories combined with Idumea and Samaria and annexed as Iudaea Province under direct Roman administration.  

Now the Romans stepped in with Procurators, Roman governors over Judah after banishing Archelaus in the year of 6 CE.  The Romans gave titles to Jews and took them away as well.  
                                                                

Agrippa I was the king of Judea from 10 BCE but was defeated in 44 CE.  He was the son of Aristobulus and grandson of Herod. 

 Herod I was King of Judea, appointed by the Roman Senate,  from 73 BCE to 4 BCE.  He was the son of Antipater, the Idumean by his Nabagean wife, Cypros.  His father had first appointed him governor of Galilee, and he showed that he had a strong hand by executing dissident Jews.  Because of his cruelty, he was summoned by the Sanhedrin and could have been put to death for taking lives, but the procurator (governor) of Syria, Sextus Caesar and Hyreanus saved him.  John Hyreanus  was the son and successor of Simon, the Hasmonean, and ruled from 135 to 104 BCE.   Hyrcanus II ws the oldest son of Alexander Yannai and had succeed his mother, Salome Alexandra in 67 BCE, but was driven from the throne and high priesthood by his brother, Aristobulus.  Pompey left for Jerusalem and was determined to fight the Roman invaders.  Pompey chased him and afater a 3 month sige, captured the Temple Mount, deposed Aristobulus and appointed Hyrcanus II as high priest.  The Jewish land was joined politically to Syria.  
                                                                    

     I  The first procurator (Roman Governor) was Josephus. 

6-9 CE  Coponius, revolt of Judas the Galilean happened.
9-12 CE  Marcus Ambibulus,   

14-37 CE TIBERIUS- Roman emperor.  In year 19, expelled Jews from Rome because of  fraud on a Roman matron sympathetic to Judaism.  He had 4,000 young Jews sent to Sardinia to fight the brigands.  Judah was harshly ruled under his rule when Jesus was crucified. 

12-15 CE Annius Rufus, Augustus died then. 
 15-26 CE  Valerius Gratus, appointed and deposed the high priests
26-36 CE  Pontius Pilate, deposed in Spring of 36
36-37 CE  Marcellus, subordinate official of Vitellius. Vitellius deposed Pilate.

44-46 CE  Ciuspius,  Claudius appointed him to stop the Syrian legate Vibius Marsus who didn't like Jews and had been mistreating them.
46-48 CE  Tiberius Alexander, sent by emperor believe that a born Jew would be welcome to the Jews.  
48-52 CE  Ventidius Curnanus, removed on the urgent petition of the Jews
52-60 CE  Felix,  appointed by emperor when high priest Jonathan asked for him.Had to sit in judgement on the apostle Paul.
60-62 CE  Porcius Festus, a fairly just man, in proceedings against Paul
62--64 CE  Albinus, notorious through his extortions.
64-66 CE  Gessius Florus, a contemptible ruler, revolt of Jews took place.  
70 CE:  ROMANS BURNED 2ND TEMPLE AND DESTROYED JERUSALEM. 

            Many Jews were captured, made into slaves, taken to Rome, killed in arenas, etc.                  

132-135 CE General"Aluf" Bar Kokhba fought the Romans, regained Jerusalem, but was killed in 135 CE. Romans were so angry that they named the land PALESTINE, after the Philistines, the worst Jewish enemy of their history.  In Greek it was called Syria Palaestina, and in Latin it was called Palaestina, and Palaistine.    

Aluf Simon bar Kokhba 

The Jewish travails started with the death of Alexander the Great and didn't end until General Bar Kokhba died which was a total of 457 years.  Chanukah's celebration was an important moment during this history of succeeding to keep alive our religion which  mattered from then on through thick and thin efforts.  It seems it's a never-ending struggle against elements that  could wipe us out, but here we are.  We live.  Chai, chai, chai.  

Resource: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12376-procurators
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.jewishhistory.org/alexander-the-great/
https://www.ancient.eu/syria/
Your Chanukah Guide, Dec 5- 13, 1996, Lubavitch World Headdauater, Rabbi Schneerson
https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-land-of-edom-aka-idumea-enemies-of.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/08/jezebel-and-fatal-royal-houses-of.html
https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2016/02/roman-destruction-of-2nd-temple-and.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/12/our-miracle-of-chanukah-storys-enemy.html