Hanukkah in America: A History

1. What Is Hanukkah?

>> 15 1 What Is Hanukkah? Hanukkah has always had something of a protean character. It emerged in the ancient world in a conflict between Judeans and one of their conquerors (except for roughly eighty years between 142 and 63 B.C.E., foreign powers controlled Judea from 586 B.C.E. through 70 C.E.), as well as among Jews themselves. The primary documents that tell us about Hanukkah’s origin were written perhaps generations after the event, and “legends seem to be inextricably interwoven with historical traditions.”1 They also reflect the interests of their different, anonymous, authors. One document, written about 100 B.C.E., describes Hanukkah originating amid the rebuilding and rededicating of the Jerusalem Temple in 164 B.C.E. during the war against a particularly nasty conqueror, Antiochus IV, who had forbidden Jewish religious practices. A second text, written about twenty-four years earlier, explains it as part of a late celebration of the autumn festival, Sukkot, that had been delayed because of wartime disruptions.2 Historian Lee I. Levine wondered why one year’s 16 > 17 The Temple’s specific location in the Judean hills has been identified as both Mt. Zion and Mt. Moriah (where Abraham promised to sacrifice his son, Isaac).6 “Defended by a stone wall . . . on the northern summit of the eastern ridge” of the Judean hills, it dominated the city.7 Its design expanded on the instructions for a house for God described in Exodus and featured outer and inner courts where Jews gathered. Within those stood the House of the Lord, a small building set on an east-west axis, with gold ornamentation and a curtain covering its entrance. Most likely, this structure was divided into three parts, a Vestibule, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies.8 More sacred than anything else in the Jewish realm, the Holy of Holies was the most religiously important spot in Jerusalem. Only once each year, on the day of fasting and repentance called Yom Kippur, did the high priest enter it. Priests stood outside that inner room within the Temple to conduct daily sacred sacrifices to God. A seven-branched candelabra —called a menorah—burned throughout each night. The sixth-century B.C.E. prophet Zechariah said that the menorah symbolized the divine presence and called its lights the eyes of God.9 Each morning, priests cleaned it and prepared it for the upcoming evening.10 Priests also maintained strict rules for their own ritual purity in order to be fit to enter the Temple, and they performed their duties according to rules set down in Leviticus (1–9).11 Each morning and afternoon, they performed incense offerings before the Holy of Holies. Twice each day, they sacrificed a lamb and sprinkled its blood on the Temple’s altar. Outside, in the Temple’s courtyard, priests sacrificed animals selected from among ten different species, as well as grains. In addition to those daily acts, priests conducted special sacrifices each Sabbath meant to assure the divine connection to the Jewish people.12 Public monies stored in the Temple purchased the items to be sacrificed on these occasions and also provided charity to widows and orphans. The lives of ordinary Jews were also linked to the Temple. On three festivals each year, Passover in early spring, Shavuot (Weeks) in early summer, and Sukkot (Tabernacles) in autumn, Jews traveled to Jerusalem to offer their own sacrifices to ensure God’s protection over their households. Yet concerns about maintaining the Temple’s ritual purity limited those pilgrims to the Temple’s courtyards only. Non-Jews could not enter the Temple precincts at all. Through these many rules and 18 > 19 That situation changed after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C.E., when his four generals divided his kingdom, and Judea ultimately came under the control of Seleucus of Syria. Judea spanned a mere eight hundred square miles, but its location near the Mediterranean plain made it attractive to larger nations from the east, north, and southwest whose armies traversed the area and competed for power.19 Seleucus’s large territory underwent sweeping administrative reforms that strengthened Seleucid power throughout the Middle East. Greek customs remained preeminent over indigenous cultures. Especially in urban areas, a Greek-speaking class dominated the Seleucid state.20 Despite those changes, the Temple still remained relatively free of foreign influence. “The pagan world was known for its tolerance,” Levine explains, “a characteristic that flowed, inter alia, from the...