Chanukah has become "Christmas Lite." A festival that exists out of envy, like Kwanzaa, "Hanukkah Harry comes to each and every Jewish household and puts presents under the Hanukkah bush" or some sort of crap like that. Chanukah has nothing to do with sugar plum fairies or sleigh bells jangling through the snow. It has nothing to do with little Jewish children feeling left out when it comes to someone else's holiday. It has to do with the state of revolutionary grace that many a nation has experienced. It's a Jewish Bastille Day, a Fourth of July, and Cinco de Mayo!
December is not the worst month of the year, it just feels it sometimes. It's dark, it's cold and then there's all that holiday cheer that fills the radio waves to the exclusion of all else. Christmas this! Christmas that! Christmas is too commercial. Santa Claus is going to get you if you don't watch out! It's tedious
One of the "holiday traditions" of late is kvetching about the "War on Christmas," and I guess whom they're talking about is me. I'm Jewish, and the Jews in America have always resented Christmas. After all, if it wasn't for Christianity, most of the problems we Jews have had over the centuries might not have happened, There are lots of reasons to resent Christmas, but the one that gets me how it has totally ruined Chanukah.
I know that everyone knows it has something to do with a miracle of some lamp oil lasting for eight days instead of one, but that really is a cover for something more important, freedom, and more important than that, a freedom that was lost. Jewish kids learn that in Hebrew school, but few and fewer go there anymore, and the vast majority (99% or so) of gentiles think of Chanukah as that menorah that has to go up next to a crèche in order to be politically correct. To understand the real meaning of Chanukah, you have to go back thousands of years, to When Northern and Western Europe had yet to be civilized and the center of Western Civilization was in Africa....
When Alexander the Great died under suspicious circumstances in 323 BC, his heirs were deemed unqualified: A mentally challenged brother, a bastard son, and a pregnant wife. So his generals decided to divide his newly minted empire, which consisted of Greece, the Achechmeid Persian Empire and a bit of Afghanistan among them. This led to a series of wars called the "funeral games" that lasted for decades, and when it was all over, there were three left, Macedonia, Egypt, and what is called by historians the Seleucid Empire, which stretched from India to the middle of what is now Turkey.
General Selucius, after whom it was named, was clearly the winner in all this, but he and his progeny weren't satisfied. They wanted it all, for if not all, a really good time. So they would attack Egypt, Greece and India, which had broken away early on and try to conquer them, failing pretty much every time. The most important of these losses was the Battle of Raphia in 217 BC, where the dissolute Pharaoh Ptolemy IV managed to beat the forces of Antiochus III, who called himself "the Great." Then the Egyptians went forward to get the Seleucids out of the province of Cole-Syria, which is now called Israel, and was populated primarily by Jews. This push failed and Ptolemy's son, the fifth, gave Antiochus the province. That's where the problems started.
The Jews liked the Ptolemies, they didn't overtax and left well enough alone. This was not something the Seleucids wanted to do. They had this idea that ruling an empire of diverse peoples was not a good idea, and wanted to make everyone Greek. This caused problems.
One of these was the problem of "cool." Greek Culture was much cooler than the Jewish culture of the time. Blame the third commandment. Jews weren't allowed to draw or sculpt. The Greeks were at the top of their form at this time, and from the archeological remains and written testimonies, the lure of beautiful art and the quest of human physical perfection was extremely tempting. This is something that American Jews of today can identify with. It's the Ultra-orthodox/Reform conflict. Reading the two books of the Maccabees (it's part of the Catholic Bible for some reason) one is conflicted near the beginning as to which side one would want to be on. The High Priest Jason seemed like a pretty good guy.
But then comes the real villain of the piece. Antiochus IV, known to history as Epimanes, the Nutcase. One o the most repulsive tyrants there was in the Greco-Roman world. Unlike Titus and Hadrian, whom had followings among ancient historians despite the fact they did all sorts of evil stuff, NOBODY liked Antiochus Epimanes. Except for the fact his coins show he was good looking. He had no redeeming qualities. In retrospect, he was the perfect villain.
Antiochus Epimanes inherited the most powerful empire of the day, and the Jews of Cole-Syria had nothing but some swords and a healthy dislike of the other Jews of Cole-Syria. They were easy to pick on. So that's what he did. He banned the Jewish population. One of his few apologists, Karen Armstrong, cannot understand why he would do such a thing, but do he did, and the two sides of the min-civil war got together in common cause under Matthias the Hasmonean and his seven sons, the most famous of whom was Judah the Maccabee (hammer). A tiny army beat back the biggest army in the World, and there was that eternal moment of grace when the revolutionary army stood upon the Temple Mount in 163 BC.
This was the last war the Jews would win by themselves for over two thousand years, something to celebrate for sure. The problem is that the Maccabees after Judah weren't that wonderful as rulers and the Jews wound up with the likes of Herod and Pontius Pilate. The Hasmonean 4th of July became far less important. Independence day without independence seems kind of pointless, so the myth of the oil became prominent, but it shouldn't.
What should be prominent is the right to abstain from Chirstmas. The right to say NO to those damn carols and the forced cheer. To say, Darn it! I'm Jewish and FUCK CHRISTMAS! Screw Santa and to Hell with all that other stuff. Remember that most of the Antiochus Epimaneses of the past two millennia were Christian, and that Jews celebrating Christmas is siding with the Spanish Inquisition and the Russian Czars. No. Cheeseburgers and ordering Chinese from one of those obnoxious menus that they slip under your door is one thing, but the spirit of Chanukah demands that we don't feel envious that our neighbors have trees in their houses. Jesus would probably be on our side.