Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas
Holiday marks the first successful revolt on behalf of religious liberty
Hanukkah, which begins this year on the evening of December 12th and lasts for eight days, is not the Jewish Christmas. Although both holidays are observed at the time of the winter solstice, emphasize the importance of light, abound in good cheer and involve the exchange of gifts, they have little else in common.
Hanukkah celebrates a successful revolt by ancient Judeans against the tyrannical rule of the Syrian Emperor Antiocus IV who was determined to destroy Judaism. Eager to bring Greek culture to Palestine in an attempt to homogenize the diverse factions of his large kingdom — the King transformed Jerusalem into a ‘polis,’ a Greek city, with a large gymnasium at its centre. The Temple was put under the control of pagan priests and dedicated to the worship of Zeus.
At that point, in 168 B.C.E., a popular uprising ensued, led by the five sons of Mattathias, an elderly Jewish leader from the village of Modin. The Maccabees, as they were called (from the Hebrew word meaning hammer), fought a tenacious guerrilla action for three years which the superior enemy could not quell.
Finally, the Syrians, tired of the struggle and with problems elsewhere, granted Jews the right to live by their own laws and traditions.
On the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, the Temple was cleansed and a new festival proclaimed called Hanukkah, the Hebrew word for renewal or dedication.
In time, however, the tradition assigned different reason for the celebration. When the Maccabees went to rekindle the Menorah, the sacred candlestick of seven branches, they found enough consecrated oil to last only one day. The oil miraculously lasted eight days until new oil could be prepared.
Without the Maccabean Revolt and the religious and national liberation it achieved, Judaism might have withered away in the Hellenist world. The other great monotheistic faiths, Christianity and Islam, might then never have come to birth, and world history would have taken a very different turn.
Another reason that so much emphasis is placed upon the Hanukkah festival is that it commemorates the first successful revolt in history on behalf of religious liberty. Such famous documents as the Magna Carta, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the Declaration of Independence, owe much to this ancient victory of the human spirit.
Hanukkah, a non-biblical holiday (its primary source is in the post-biblical Apocrypha) has grown in importance over the last century. Its proximity to Christmas led inevitably to an emphasis on home decorations, gifts for children, religious school plays and celebrations and the kindling of candles for eight nights in the ceremonial candelabrum or menorah.
Among North American Jews, the latke, a pancake made of potatoes and onions fried in oil, is the food most associated with the holiday — probably because of the importance of oil in the story.
Hanukkah has become a means for North American Jews, through the alchemy of acculturation, to feel a kinship with their neighbours while simultaneously asserting their religious distinctiveness.