Chanukah as a historical reminder

The next holiday in the Jewish calendar is Chanukah, which was set in memory of the Maccabees' victory and the purification of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem from idolatry.

Religious background struggles were before. For example, Pharaoh Akhnathon in ancient Egypt declared war on the religious establishment and made the solar religion the only religion, a kind of ancient and not due attempt to rule Monotheism. The move was turned around after his death, when the old religious establishment in Egypt returned to a position of power. Generally speaking, the victors of the ancient wars believed that their gods were stronger than the defeated side.

However, a systematic attempt to ban religion, as Antiochus IV tried to do, did not happen before as far as we know. But Antiochus IV learned a lesson to be repeated in human history: the homeland constitutes the beating heart of the people, and the religious belief is its soul. The triangular combination of a nation - a homeland - a religion, constitutes a tremendous force multiplier.

Antiochus tried to attack the Jewish faith, coming out against the Jewish people in his homeland Judea. The attack caused the people, at the time almost entirely of farmers and priests, all inexperienced soldiers and lack of military legacy, to wake up as angry Lion, and to form a strong steel army, which successfully fought the army of the Seleucid Empire, then the second strongest army in the world after the Roman army. Not only did Antiochus not succeed in destroying the Jewish faith, but the move brought the Jewish people in the land of Judea to gain its independence, and subsequently established the Hashmonaim kingdom that ruled Judea for almost a century.

This is an important and exciting lesson in Jewish and human history in general, which some researchers even say has inspired the Christian crusades.

The Maccabean revolt was the inspiration for the series of historical novels Lions of Judea, which describes the story of Judah Maccabee, the leader of the rebellion, from a human and dramatic point of view, but with great historical fidelity to the facts.

#HistoricalFiction #KindleBook #Maccabees #Hanukah #Chanuka #AncientRome #HistoricalNovel #QumranScrolls

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