Remembering the Jewish Spring

I've previously blogged about the true story behind Hanukah.  To recap: it had nothing to do with oil in the lamp.  That was made up by rabbis hundreds of years later, in a deliberate attempt to water down the true message of the holiday.

The event surrounding Hanukah is the Hasmonean revolt.  At the time, Ancient Israel was occupied by a foreign empire, the Seleucids.  The revolt had humble beginnings; the Selucid occupation was supported by a puppet regime in Jerusalem.  The occupiers engaged in a campaign of "Helenization" that denied religious freedom.  In a country village, a small-time priest named Mattathias revolted.

At first, the Hasmonean resistance was limited to guerilla-style tactics, which the oppressive central government sought to suppress with military force.  But as the movement gained popular support across the country, Mattathias--who took the nom de guerre The Hammer--was able to build a conventional army, and eventually bested the Seleucid army in several conventional battles.  The rebels seized the capital city and set up a new government that protected the political and religious freedoms of the people.

The result: over a hundred years of religious and political freedom in Israel, until the Romans showed up.  It was the last period of self-determination for the Jewish nation until 1948.

Sound familiar?  It does to me.  2,100 years ago, Israel experienced its own "Jewish spring," in which the people rose up and took back their own country from an oppressive regime.  A lot of this has to do with self-determination, and freedom.  Now the countries around Israel are experiencing the same thing: people rising up and throwing off the shackles of tyranny, all for the sake of individual liberty and self-determination.

Why bury this story of freedom and liberty?  During the Dark Ages, as Jews experienced oppression and persecution throughout the world, the idea of fighting for themselves seemed counter-productive.  Jews recalled, with pain, how a subsequent rebellion in 72 CE had resulted in the destruction of the Great Temple in Jerusalem.  The Roman Empire had quite literally wiped Israel off the map, renaming the territory Palestine (that's where that comes from).  So the rabbis re-wrote the story as a God-granted "miracle," and the true accomplishment of Jews standing up for themselves was buried.

So, what's the take-away?  For me, it's a reminder that what's happening in the Arab world is a good thing.  I mean in the long term, "make the world a better place" kind of good thing.  I know Israel is concerned about their security agreements with Egypt, and a quickly changing landscape with an uncertain future.  But there's a very good chance that a wave of democratization is sweeping across the Arab world, and the result will be liberalized regimes who don't need to villify Israel as an excuse for oppressing their own people.

Jews all over the world still remember our own Spring, where we fought off the yoke of oppression so we could build a better future for ourselves.  We should celebrate it when our neighbors do the same thing.