Who can retell?

A little knowledge can be dangerous. I am so sick of people with no more than a child’s understanding of Hanukkah twisting or inventing its historical facts to make it seem that the holiday validates their own agenda, no matter how odious that agenda is.

In “An ignorant ‘New York Times’ trashes the Maccabees” (December 4), the rabbi sheds lights on some of media giants and individuals shamelessly transforming the “Festival of Lights” and truth into something dark and false.

After reading the article, I appreciate the richness, depth and historical context of the holiday more than ever – and deplore those who retell and pervert it, flaunting their ignorance in the process. YONI FRIEDMAN

Modi’in

I agree with almost all of Shmuley Boteach’s article, but a sentence near the end of his article showed that he is also subject to prejudicial thinking.

While it’s true that Thanksgiving was celebrated by those seeking their own form of religion, the phrase “brave men and women who were forced to venture to a new world to practice the faith of their choosing” implies that they were seeking to introduce religious freedom when they were actually importing their own form of fundamentalist Christianity and persecuting those who disagreed with them.

Almost more like Antiochus IV Epiphanes than the Maccabees! BOB KNIGHT

Modi’in