Happy Hanukkah!

Whether you spell it Hanukkah, Chanukah, Chanukkah or whatever, I wish all of my fellow Jews a Happy Holiday!

For those of you who are not familiar with the holiday, it commemorates the re-dedication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem following a successful revolt in the second century B.C.E. in Judea by the religious/military organization known as the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire. The Maccabean revolt was started in response to efforts by the Seleucid King, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, to force Jewish assimilation into the greater Greek culture by outlawing Jewish religious practices. As part of this religious persecution, the Temple was converted to a temple to the Greek Gods. This conversion is what necessitated the re-dedication when the Temple was recaptured by the Maccabees.

For a more detailed account of the holiday, Wikipedia actually has a fairly comprehensive discussion.

One interesting quirk of Hanukkah is that while the story appears to be a celebration of the struggle against assimilation, the observance of Hanukkah, since it comes out very close to Christmas, has probably been influenced by Christian culture more than any other Jewish holiday. Just as an example of this Christmas influence, gift-giving, for the most part, isn't really a Hanukkah tradition and was only adopted by American Jews so their kids wouldn't feel left out at Christmas-time.

I realize that almost all religious traditions have been influenced by other cultures, but I still think it's strange that people would choose to transform a holiday celebrating a violent struggle to preserve traditional culture in the face of a dominant societal influence into an imitation of the Christian holiday that occurs at generally the same time. This is especially odd since the story of Hanukkah is far more interesting than the holiday that current American culture is trying to force it to become. Celebrating the religiously fueled violent overthrow of an oppressive regime and the subsequent purging of outside influences on the holiest site in all of Judaism seems far more exciting than celebrating Christmas' wimpy little brother.

On the other hand, with Christmas' wimpy little brother we get gifts. That's more exciting than any story I could ever tell.