On This Day in History: November 21

The story of Hanukkah

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We’re entering the season of getting Christmas rammed down our throats. But’s what’s Hanukkah about? It started more with ramming swords into throats.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: November 21, 164 BCE--

The Jewish people have been attacked and oppressed since, well, forever. So, it shouldn’t be surprising the holiday is tied to a war. Specifically, the Maccabean Revolt, which began in 167 BCE. After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, his Greek empire split up. One of those empires became known as the Seleucid Empire, which took control of Judea in 198 BCE and they were total dicks about it; they wanted to convert Jews to the ways of Greek culture and religion. But the Jews were all fuck that we got our own culture and religion that we’re pretty happy with so piss off.

The persecution grew via various laws designed to oppress the Jewish population, and after three decades they’d had enough. Specially, a Jewish country priest named Mattathias was done with this bullshit. In 167 BCE a Seleucid officer tried to force Mattathias to sacrifice an animal to an idol. If you’ve seen the movie The Ten Commandments you know he wasn’t keen on that, so he ghosted that motherfucker, tore down the idol, and said, “Let’s fuck their shit up!” More or less.

Mattathias and his family led the rebellion and became known as the Maccabees, meaning “the hammer.” They went on a guerrilla warfare campaign of destroying Hellenistic (Greek) altars and launching devastating attacks on the Seleucid army using hit-and-run tactics.

Mattathias died a year into the revolt, and his son Judah took over. Over the next two years there were many battles, yet the badly outnumbered Jewish forces managed to prevail in no small part to Judah’s brilliance as a military commander.

The first Jewish Temple of Jerusalem was built in approximately 1000 BCE, then destroyed by Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in 587 BCE. It was replaced with a second temple in 516 BCE. When Judah Maccabeus and his forces retook Jerusalem, they found the second temple defiled and destroyed, and they were pissed. But they restored and rededicated the temple on November 21, 164 BCE. And it is that restoration and rededication that Hanukkah celebrates.

Why is Hanukkah eight days? Because of the miracle of the oil. Upon reclaiming the temple, they found the ritual olive oil used to light the temple defiled. There was only enough to last a single day. But legend proclaims it lasted eight days, just long enough to press more oil. And that’s what Hanukkah is about.

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