tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/maccabees-47330/articlesMaccabees – La Conversation2018-12-05T11:41:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1076762018-12-05T11:41:35Z2018-12-05T11:41:35ZWhat Hanukkah’s portrayal in pop culture means to American Jews<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248842/original/file-20181204-34157-jbguce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hanukkah demands fewer religious rituals than most other Jewish observances.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/three-generation-jewish-family-lighting-chanukah-61230784?src=-i6Vd57GC-Gl7WVXZ1Nksw-1-53">Golden Pixels LLC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I was growing up in suburban New York, Hanukkah was not grounded in religious observance. Having no clue that there are traditional Hebrew blessings that accompany the kindling of the Hanukkah candles, we invented our own wishes, awkwardly voiced out loud, for happiness and peace.</p>
<p>Then again, the festival of Hanukkah demands the performance of fewer religious rituals than most other Jewish observances. Even the most pious Jews do not take off from work during the eight-day festival. After all, the holiday is never mentioned in the Bible, since the events that it commemorates occurred hundreds of years after the Bible was written. </p>
<p>Today, this minor festival of Hanukkah has become supersized into a Jewish version of Christmas – a time for family gatherings, gift-giving and festivity. But it is through pop culture that Jews have found their own identity, in which they can take pride.</p>
<h2>Hanukkah in America</h2>
<p>The true story of Hanukkah is of a conflict <a href="https://jps.org/books/jerusalem/">between two different groups of Jews</a> – those who were eager to become part of the Hellenistic culture represented by the Syrian-Greeks against a band of zealots called the Maccabees, who sought to maintain Jewish rites. </p>
<p>Today, in the U.S., however, <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/">only 15 percent of American Jews</a> view their Jewish identity as rooted in religion. And for many American Jews, aspects of Hanukkah that are most attractive tend to be those that mirror what many other Americans are doing at this time of year – <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">such as celebrating Christmas</a>. </p>
<p>As some economists have pointed out, Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday that is <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Eleinav/pubs/EJ2010.pdf">celebrated much more widely</a> among American Jews who have children. Notably, Jews who live in Christian majority areas, end up spending more on Hanukkah gifts than those who reside in mostly Jewish neighborhoods. By contrast, Hanukkah in Israel <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Eleinav/pubs/EJ2010.pdf">is not as significant.</a> </p>
<h2>Hanukkah in pop culture</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, American Jews have carved out a place for Hanukkah in pop culture. </p>
<p>Seeing their own group depicted in pop culture has been an important source of pride for American Jews throughout the last century, as I observed in my book on <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/in-their-own-image/9780813538099">Jewish vaudeville, theater and film</a>.</p>
<p>Jewish comedians over the last few decades <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/a-kosher-christmas/9780813553801">have mined humor</a> from the need that Jews have to feel that their minority identity is still a meaningful and salient one, even while poking gentle fun at Christmas.</p>
<p>An example is that of comedian Jon Lovitz’s Hanukkah Harry premiered on “Saturday Night Live” in 1989. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MXtGYwY_D7o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hanukkah Harry.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a gray-bearded, ultra-Orthodox Jewish character, Hanukkah Harry fills in for an ailing Santa to deliver presents on Christmas Eve only to face disappointment from Christian children when they receive chocolate coins and dreidels, a Hanukkah spinning top, which seem paltry and foreign to them.</p>
<p>And another comedian, Adam Sandler, whose <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUCNAnp2QAI">“Hanukkah Song”</a> was first performed on “Saturday Night Live” in 1994, reminds Jews that they have their own holiday in which they can take pride. “When you feel like the only kid in town without a Christmas tree,” the song starts off, “here’s a list of people who are Jewish just like you and me,” and then provides a humorous list of celebrities who are at least partly Jewish in ancestry, from Kirk Douglas to Dinah Shore. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qUCNAnp2QAI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The song has been watched almost 5 million times on YouTube.</p>
<h2>Jewish role in secularizing Christmas</h2>
<p>Some scholars suggest that before making Hanukkah into an essentially non-religious celebration, Jews had already “secularized” Christmas. </p>
<p>Music scholar <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/99513/a-fine-romance-by-david-lehman/9780805242713">David Lehman</a>, for example, writes that Christmas “became a secular holiday” thanks to the efforts of composer Irving Berlin, a Russian Jewish immigrant whose “White Christmas” unified Americans during the Second World War. Its lyrics about “sleigh bells in the snow” appealed to common feelings of nostalgia toward hearth and home.</p>
<p>Indeed, a <a href="http://riddlefilms.com/portfolio-item/the-jews-who-wrote-christmas/">new documentary</a> from Canadian filmmaker Larry Weinstein also shows the role of Jewish songwriters in recreating Christmas as a secular holiday. The majority of iconic Christmas carols, from “The Christmas Song,” about chestnuts roasting on an open fire, to “Silver Bells,” were written by Jews. These songs de-emphasized the religious aspects of the holiday and turned it into a celebration of cold weather, family and simple pleasures. </p>
<p>Even “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” can be seen as a song about an outsider who, without losing what what makes him distinct, manages to join the in-crowd, just as Jews themselves did in America. </p>
<h2>Connecting to other Jews</h2>
<p>In the end, the contemporary celebration of Hanukkah does not tend to hinge on the need to reclaim a distinctive religious practice. Instead, it centers on recapturing a sense of connection to other Jews.</p>
<p>This Hanukkah, I will celebrate the holiday with my wife and children by lighting the menorah and chanting the Hebrew blessings – which I finally learned.</p>
<p>The real highlight, however, will not be the religious aspects, which are pretty thin, but the gustatory pleasure of the thick, sizzling potato latkes, waiting to be covered with sour cream or apple sauce.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Merwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the primacy of Christmas in American culture, the visibility of Hanukkah in pop culture reminds Jews that they have their own holiday in which they can take pride.Ted Merwin, Part-Time Associate Professor of Religion, Dickinson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064262018-12-02T15:29:11Z2018-12-02T15:29:11ZHow Hanukkah came to America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248046/original/file-20181129-170253-111de2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the United States, Hanukkah has gained much significance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/grandmother-grandfather-grandparents-embrace-their-grandson-543199741?src=-i6Vd57GC-Gl7WVXZ1Nksw-1-75">Tercer Ojo Photography/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hanukkah may be the best known Jewish holiday in the United States. But despite its popularity in the U.S., Hanukkah is ranked one of Judaism’s minor festivals, and nowhere else does it garner such attention. The holiday is mostly a domestic celebration, although special holiday prayers also expand synagogue worship.</p>
<p>So how did Hanukkah attain its special place in America?</p>
<h2>Hanukkah’s back story</h2>
<p>The word “Hanukkah” means dedication. It commemorates the rededicating of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C. when Jews – led by a band of brothers called the Maccabees – <a href="https://jps.org/books/jerusalem">tossed out statues of Hellenic gods</a> that had been placed there by King Antiochus IV when he conquered Judea. Antiochus aimed to plant Hellenic culture throughout his kingdom, and that included worshipping its gods. </p>
<p>Legend has it that during the dedication, as people prepared to light the Temple’s large oil lamps to signify the presence of God, only a tiny bit of holy oil could be found. Yet, that little bit of oil remained alight for eight days until more could be prepared. Thus, each Hanukkah evening, for eight nights, Jews light a candle, adding an additional one as the holiday progresses throughout the festival. </p>
<h2>Hanukkah’s American story</h2>
<p>Today, America is home to <a href="http://ajpp.brandeis.edu">almost 7 million Jews</a>. But Jews did not always find it easy to be Jewish in America. Until the late 19th century, America’s Jewish population was very small and grew to only as many as 250,000 in 1880. The basic goods of Jewish religious life – such as kosher meat and candles, Torah scrolls, and Jewish calendars – were often hard to find.</p>
<p>In those early days, major Jewish religious events took special planning and effort, and minor festivals like Hanukkah <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/search/node/american%20judaism">often slipped by unnoticed</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">My own study of American Jewish history</a> has recently focused on Hanukkah’s development. </p>
<p>It <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Isaac-Harby-of-Charleston-1788-1828,621.aspx">began with a simple holiday hymn</a> written in 1840 by Penina Moise, a Jewish Sunday school teacher in Charleston, South Carolina. Her evangelical Christian neighbors worked hard to bring the local Jews into the Christian fold. They urged Jews to agree that only by becoming Christian could they attain God’s love and ultimately reach Heaven. </p>
<p>Moise, a famed poet, saw the holiday celebrating dedication to Judaism as an occasion to inspire Jewish dedication despite Christian challenges. Her congregation, Beth Elohim, publicized the hymn by including it in their hymnbook. </p>
<p>This English language hymn expressed a feeling common <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Isaac-Harby-of-Charleston-1788-1828,621.aspx">to many American Jews</a> living as a tiny minority. “Great Arbiter of human fate whose glory ne'er decays,” <a href="https://hymnary.org/hymn/HAJW1887/118">Moise began the hymn</a>, “To Thee alone we dedicate the song and soul of praise.” </p>
<p>It became a favorite among American Jews and could be heard in congregations around the country for another century. </p>
<p>Shortly after the Civil War, Cincinnati Rabbi Max Lilienthal <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/max-lilienthal">learned about special Christmas events for children</a> held in some local churches. To adapt them for children in his own congregation, he created a Hanukkah assembly where the holiday’s story was told, blessings and hymns were sung, candles were lighted and sweets were distributed to the children. </p>
<p>His friend, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, created a similar event for his own congregation. Wise and Lilienthal edited national Jewish magazines where they publicized these innovative Hanukkah assemblies, encouraging other congregations to establish their own. </p>
<p>Lilienthal and Wise also aimed to reform Judaism, streamlining it and emphasizing the rabbi’s role as teacher. Because they felt their changes would help Judaism survive in the modern age, they called themselves <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">“Modern Maccabees</a>.” Through their efforts, special Hanukkah events for children became standard in American synagogues. </p>
<h2>20th-century expansion</h2>
<p>By 1900, industrial America produced the abundance of goods exchanged each Dec. 25. Christmas’ domestic celebrations and gifts to children <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/search?cc=us&lang=en&q=restad,%20penne">provided a shared religious experience to American Christians</a> otherwise separated by denominational divisions. As a home celebration, it sidestepped the theological and institutional loyalties voiced in churches. </p>
<p>For the 2.3 million Jewish immigrants who entered the U.S. between 1881 and 1924, providing their children with gifts in December proved they were <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/adapting-to-abundance/9780231068536">becoming American and obtaining a better life</a>. </p>
<p>But by giving those gifts at Hanukkah, instead of adopting Christmas, they also expressed their own ideals of American religious freedom, as well as their own dedication to Judaism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248049/original/file-20181129-170223-b9e46f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Hanukkah religious service and party in 1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/center_for_jewish_history/8232639754/">Center for Jewish History, NYC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After World War II, many Jews relocated from urban centers. Suburban Jewish children often comprised small minorities in public schools and found themselves <a href="http://www.adathjeshurun.info/Perspectives/Rabbinical_Perspective-12.2011-01.2012.pdf">coerced to participate in Christmas assemblies</a>. Teachers, administrators and peers often pressured them to sing Christian hymns and assert statements of Christian faith. </p>
<p>From the 1950s through the 1980s, as Jewish parents argued for their children’s right to freedom from religious coercion, they also <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">embellished Hanukkah</a>. Suburban synagogues expanded their Hanukkah programming. </p>
<p>As I detail in my book, Jewish families embellished domestic Hanukkah celebrations with decorations, nightly gifts and holiday parties to enhance Hanukkah’s impact. In suburbia, Hanukkah’s theme of dedication to Judaism shone with special meaning. Rabbinical associations, national Jewish clubs and advertisers of Hanukkah goods carried the ideas for expanded Hanukkah festivities nationwide. </p>
<p>In the 21st century, Hanukkah accomplishes many tasks. Amid Christmas, it reminds Jews of Jewish dedication. Its domestic celebration enhances Jewish family life. In its similarity to Christmas domestic gift-giving, Hanukkah makes Judaism attractive to children and – according to my college students – relatable to Jews’ Christian neighbors. In many interfaith families, this shared festivity furthers domestic tranquility. </p>
<p>In America, this minor festival has attained major significance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106426/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dianne Ashton received funding for her research on Hanukkah from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the American Jewish Archives, and Rowan University.</span></em></p>Hanukkah is ranked one of Judaism’s minor festivals, but its popularity in the US has a lot to do with America’s Jews trying to fight assimilation into a culture that welcomed them.Dianne Ashton, Professor of Religion, Rowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882252017-12-07T18:47:06Z2017-12-07T18:47:06ZHanukkah’s true meaning is about Jewish survival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198025/original/file-20171206-31532-4wxjt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/101422984?src=SCgcp5hYcu4pdFCFBZP2cA-1-67&size=huge_jpg">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every December Jews celebrate the eight-day festival of Hanukkah, perhaps the best-known and certainly the most visible Jewish holiday.</p>
<p>While critics sometimes identify Christmas as promoting the prevalence in America today of what one might refer to as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/hanukkah-sucks-amirite/419649/">Hanukkah kitsch</a>, this assessment misses the social and theological significance of Hanukkah within Judaism itself. </p>
<p>Let’s consider the origin and development of Hanukkah over the past more than 2,000 years.</p>
<h2>Early history</h2>
<p>Though it is 2,200 years old, <a href="http://fortresspress.com/product/jewish-literature-between-bible-and-mishnah-2nd-ed-stand-alone-cd-rom">Hanukkah</a> is one of Judaism’s newest holidays, an annual Jewish celebration that does not even appear in the Hebrew Bible. </p>
<p>The historical event that is the basis for Hanukkah is told, rather, in the post-biblical Books of the Maccabees, which appear in the Catholic biblical canon but are not even considered part of the Bible by Jews and most Protestant denominations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198027/original/file-20171206-31539-1ehaius.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198027/original/file-20171206-31539-1ehaius.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198027/original/file-20171206-31539-1ehaius.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198027/original/file-20171206-31539-1ehaius.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198027/original/file-20171206-31539-1ehaius.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198027/original/file-20171206-31539-1ehaius.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198027/original/file-20171206-31539-1ehaius.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Maccabees receive their father’s blessing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Maccabees_receive_their_father's_blessing.jpg">The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation via Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Based on the Greco-Roman model of celebrating a military triumph, Hanukkah was instituted in 164 B.C. <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Jewish-Way/Irving-Greenberg/9780671873035">to celebrate the victory</a> of the Maccabees, a ragtag army of Jews, against the much more powerful army of King Antiochus IV of Syria. </p>
<p>In 168 B.C., Antiochus outlawed Jewish practice and forced Jews to adopt pagan rituals and assimilate into Greek culture. </p>
<p>The Maccabees revolted against this persecution. They captured Jerusalem from Antiochus’s control, removed from the Jerusalem Temple symbols of pagan worship that Antiochus had introduced and restarted the sacrificial worship, ordained by God in the Hebrew Bible, that Antiochus had violated. </p>
<p>Hanukkah, meaning “dedication,” <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/origins-judaism-canaan-rise-islam?format=HB&isbn=9780521844536#5w0geqHTDUrD7fPj.97">marked this military victory</a>
with a celebration that lasted eight days and was modeled on the festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot) that had been banned by Antiochus.</p>
<h2>How Hanukkah evolved</h2>
<p>The military triumph, however, was short-lived. The Maccabees’ descendants – the Hasmonean dynasty – routinely violated their own Jewish law and tradition. </p>
<p>Even more significantly, the following centuries witnessed the devastation that would be caused when Jews tried again to accomplish what the Maccabees had done. By now, Rome controlled the land of Israel. In A.D. 68-70 and again in A.D. 133-135, the Jews mounted passionate revolts to rid their land of this foreign and oppressing power. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198028/original/file-20171206-31521-139cbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198028/original/file-20171206-31521-139cbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198028/original/file-20171206-31521-139cbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198028/original/file-20171206-31521-139cbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198028/original/file-20171206-31521-139cbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198028/original/file-20171206-31521-139cbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198028/original/file-20171206-31521-139cbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFrancesco_Hayez_017.jpg">Francesco Hayez, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first of these revolts ended in the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple, the preeminent center of Jewish worship, which had stood for 600 years. As a result of the second revolt, the <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/origins-judaism-canaan-rise-islam?format=HB&isbn=9780521844536#5w0geqHTDUrD7fPj.97">Jewish homeland was devastated</a> and countless Jews were put to death.</p>
<p>War no longer seemed an effective solution to the Jews’ tribulations on the stage of history.</p>
<p>In response, a new ideology deemphasized the idea that Jews should or could change their destiny through military action. What was required, rabbis asserted, was not battle but perfect observance of God’s moral and ritual law. This would lead to God’s intervention in history to restore the Jewish people’s control over their own land and destiny.</p>
<p>In this context, rabbis rethought Hanukkah’s origins as the celebration of a military victory. Instead, they said, Hanukkah should be seen as commemorating a miracle that occurred during the Maccabees’ rededication of the temple: <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Jewish-Way/Irving-Greenberg/9780671873035">The story now told</a> was how a jar of temple oil sufficient for only one day had sustained the temple’s eternal lamp for a full eight days, until additional ritually appropriate oil could be produced. </p>
<p>The earliest version of this story <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.21b?lang=bi">appears in the Talmud</a>, in a document completed in the sixth century A.D. From that period on, rather than directly commemorating the Maccabees’ victory, Hanukkah celebrated God’s miracle.</p>
<p>This is symbolized by the kindling of an eight-branched candelabra (“Menorah” or “Hanukkiah”), with one candle lit on the holiday’s first night and an additional candle added each night until, on the final night of the festival, all eight branches are lit. The ninth candle in the Hanukkiah is used to light the others.</p>
<p>Throughout the medieval period, however, Hanukkah remained a <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Jewish-Way/Irving-Greenberg/9780671873035">minor Jewish festival</a>. </p>
<h2>What Hanukkah means today</h2>
<p>How then to understand what happened to Hanukkah in the past hundred years, during which it has achieved prominence in Jewish life, both in America and around the world? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198026/original/file-20171206-31552-1vdc7v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198026/original/file-20171206-31552-1vdc7v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198026/original/file-20171206-31552-1vdc7v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198026/original/file-20171206-31552-1vdc7v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198026/original/file-20171206-31552-1vdc7v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198026/original/file-20171206-31552-1vdc7v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198026/original/file-20171206-31552-1vdc7v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hanukkah today responds to Jews’ desire to see their history as consequential.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/en/candles-menorah-light-hanukkah-897776/">Pixabay.com/en</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The point is that even as the holiday’s prior iterations reflected the distinctive needs of successive ages, so Jews today have reinterpreted Hanukkah in light of contemporary circumstances – a point that is detailed in religion scholar <a href="https://academics.rowan.edu/chss/departments/philosophy/faculty/AshtonDianne.html">Dianne Ashton’s</a> book, <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">“Hanukkah in America.”</a></p>
<p>Ashton demonstrates while Hanukkah has evolved in tandem with the extravagance of the American Christmas season, there is much more to this story. </p>
<p>Hanukkah today <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814707395/">responds to Jews’ desire</a> to see their history as consequential, as reflecting the value of religious freedom that Jews share with all other Americans. Hanukkah, with its bright decorations, songs, and family- and community-focused celebrations, also fulfills American Jews’ need to reengage disaffected Jews and to keep Jewish children excited about Judaism. </p>
<p>Poignantly, telling a story of persecution and then redemption, Hanukkah today provides a historical paradigm that can help modern Jews think about the Holocaust and the emergence of Zionism. </p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>In short, Hanukkah is as powerful a commemoration as it is today because it responds to a host of factors pertinent to contemporary Jewish history and life. </p>
<p>Over two millennia, Hanukkah has evolved to narrate the story of the Maccabees in ways that meet the distinctive needs of successive generations of Jews. Each generation tells the story as it needs to hear it, in response to the eternal values of Judaism but also as is appropriate to each period’s distinctive cultural forces, ideologies and experiences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88225/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Avery-Peck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hanukkah was instituted in 164 B.C. to celebrate military victory, but the meaning has changed over time with the circumstances of the Jewish people.Alan Avery-Peck, Kraft-Hiatt Professor in Judaic Studies, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.