The Hebrew Bible teems with episodes of violence. Particularly relevant this year is the story of Jacob’s two sons, Levi and Simeon, massacring the entire male population of a city in a devious scheme using a religious pretext (Genesis 34), a precedent for massacring Palestinians portrayed as the biblical archenemy Amalek.
Jacob was so aggrieved by what his two sons did that, even many years later while blessing his other children on his deathbed, he issued a resolute condemnation to these two:
“Simeon and Levi are a pair;
Their weapons are tools of lawlessness.
Let not my person be included in their council,
Let not my being be counted in their assembly.
For when angry, they slay a man,
And when pleased, they maim an ox.
Cursed be their anger so fierce,
And their wrath so relentless.” (Genesis 49:5–7)
Jewish oral tradition, developed after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, often interprets the Biblical verses mentioning instruments of war allegorically. For example, the sword and the bow used by Jacob the Patriarch against his enemies (Genesis 48:22) are reinterpreted as prayer and supplication (Bereshit Rabbah 97:6). Similarly, the victory of Benaiah over Moab (2 Samuel 23:20) is understood as a metaphor for Torah study (BT Berakhot 18b). Tradition places Jewish heroism in the house of study, not on the battlefield. This partly explains why hundreds of thousands of observant Israeli Jews today refuse to enlist in the military.
Yet Hanukkah, which does not appear in the Hebrew Bible but is mentioned in the Christian Bible, seems to recount a story of war. Comparing Hanukkah with another popular Jewish festival, Purim, reveals important insights into traditional Jewish attitudes towards collective threats, whether spiritual or physical.
The holiday of Purim, described in the Book of Esther, provides a peaceful model for conflict resolution. The story is as simple as it is prophetic. Haman, the Persian vizier, planned a total massacre: “to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day” (Esther 3:13). The Jews responded by proclaiming a fast of repentance while finding a way to influence the king, thereby circumventing the vizier and his decree. Queen Esther intervened, charmed the king and only later revealed her Jewish origins. She convinced him to stop the planned genocide. Notably, it did not occur to the Jews to organize self-defense units against Haman. The violence committed by the Jews against their enemies, mentioned in the story’s conclusion, was explicitly authorized by the king, who had previously acquiesced to Haman’s extermination plan.
By contrast, the story of Hanukkah centres on resolute recourse to force in response to a collective threat. Like Purim, Hanukkah celebrates deliverance, but the nature of the threats is different, resulting in different responses. The threat of physical destruction posed by Haman prompted fasting and repentance. However, when King Antiochus outlawed Jewish practice and forced Jews to engage in idolatry, he sought their spiritual destruction. In such circumstances, the use of force becomes legitimate — a Jew is duty-bound to sacrifice their life rather than worship idols.
The story of the Maccabees is often used to draw political conclusions. According to a Zionist commentary, which rejects the traditional vision of the event:
“For any thinking Jew, Hanukkah is nothing more than a day to commemorate the heroes of Jewish self-defense. No miracle fell from the sky… But the sword created one: a dead people were resurrected. The Torah could not save from the fist; it was the fist that saved the Torah. The sword, not the skullcap, will protect the Jew in the blood-soaked lands of his enemies.”
Today, this interpretation resonates with many Jews who believe in the primacy of might. Ironically, such glorification of force reverses the significance of the holiday, which celebrates allegiance to the Torah against Hellenistic influence. In fact, it gives posthumous victory to all past persecutors of Jews, from Haman to Hitler, who proudly declared that “might makes right”.
What is the Judaic reference to Hanukkah? A passage from the daily prayer book reveals its meaning:
“In the days of Mattityahu, the son of Yochanan, the High Priest, the Hasmonean, and his sons—when the wicked Hellenistic kingdom rose up against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah and compel them to stray from the statutes of Your Will—You, in Your great mercy, stood up for them in their time of distress. You took up their grievance, judged their claim, and avenged their wrong. You delivered the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton into the hands of the diligent students of Your Torah.”
The war often invoked by advocates of force turns out, in Jewish ritual, to have been a victory of God, not of soldiers. Tradition emphasizes that loyalty to the Torah and moral purity, rather than the number of soldiers or the strength of the army, were decisive factors. With regard to Hanukkah, the Talmud relegates the hostilities to a secondary position and focuses instead on the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days in the Temple, which the Maccabees had liberated and purified. The purity of the oil symbolizes the purity of heart required to fight idolatry.
Thus, even when violence is legitimate, as in the case of Hanukkah, rabbinic Judaism definitively downplays it. Conversely, new values promoted by National Judaism (dati-leumi), encourage the use of force and dehumanize the Palestinians. Selfies of Israelis reveling in the murder of Palestinians in Gaza have become viral. However, there is a growing rift within the ranks of National Judaism. A movement called Smol Emuni, the Faithful Left, works hard to cleanse the stream of Judaism they all grew up in from fascist and racist traits that have come to dominate it. They truly fight for the soul of modern Judaism.
The eight days of Hanukkah should prompt reflection on the recourse to violence, which has been foundational to the Zionist settlement in the Holy Land for over a century.
Photo: Israeli soldiers celebrates Hanukkah over the ruins of Indonesian Hospital in Gaza
