Here’s a reason for the world—not just Jews—to celebrate Hanukkah: Without the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Greek empire of King Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the mid second century BCE, there would be no Christianity or Islam.
This startling theorem came courtesy of my friend Arthur who forwarded an email from Robert Nicholson, president and founder of The Philos Project, an organization that “seeks to promote positive Christian engagement in the Near East by creating leaders, building community, and taking action in the spirit of the Hebraic Tradition” (https://philosproject.org/about/).
Antiochus “tried to eradicate Judaism and its worship of one God from the world,” Nicholson wrote. “Against all odds, the Maccabees fought back and prevailed. And in so doing, they saved the tradition that would give birth to Christianity and transfer values like equality and justice to the whole world.”
Jesus, after all, was Jewish and celebrated the holiday we now call Hanukkah (John (10:22), Nicholson pointed out.
Mohammed, on the other hand, was not Jewish, but he structured Islam’s monotheism on many of the precepts of Judaism and Christianity, including their many prophets and disciples, though Mohammad was careful to articulate that God’s revelations to him superseded previous messages to such figures as Moses and Jesus.
It is an unfortunate truism that through millennia many religions have turned violent against non-believers, those who refused to accept the faith of the powerful. The Maccabees cleansed not only the defiled Temple in Jerusalem but also erased Jews who adopted Hellenistic ways. Catholics and Protestants fought, and did sects within the Russian Orthodox Church. Native cultures in the Americas and Africa were subjugated by Christian armies. Accept Islam or perish, was Mohammad’s choice to the inhabitants of Arabia. Since his death some 1,400 yers ago, Sunni and Shia Muslims have battled over his religion’s legacy.
The current war between Israel and Hamas is not just a struggle over territory. The conflict runs much deeper than one between a Jewish state and an Islamic terrorist organization bent on its destruction. Central to Hamas, as it is to The Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS, is opposition to Western values.
In a series of position statements The Philos Project states, We “disagree with those schools of Islamic interpretation that reject pluralism, denigrate non-Muslims, or seek to impose Islamic doctrine through violence. We respect and affirm the right of Muslims to practice their faith freely. But we respect a religion only until it forces itself on those who don’t believe.”
“Under Hamas, there are no personal freedoms, gender equality, or religious freedom. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood seek to unite all Muslims under a new Caliphate, an imperialist theocracy that dissolved with the fall of the Ottoman Empire post-WWI, where political and civil society is governed under Sharia law.”
A unity not very likely to happen, but instructive as to the intractability of dealing with Hamas. Any peace, any truce, with Hamas will last only as long as Hamas sees it as in its interests to rearm for its next confrontation. As Hillary Rodham Clinton noted on “The View” last month, a cease fire existed on October 6. Hamas brutally and inhumanely violated it on October 7.
