Hanukkah, Syria and the Perils of Empire
Friday, December 23, 2016 By Brant Rosen, Truthout | Op-Ed
A front line in Aleppo, Syria, on December 12, 2012. (Photo: Tyler Hicks /
The New York Times)
It is a tragic irony that the festival of Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday that
commemorates an ancient uprising against an oppressive Assyrian ruler, is
being observed as we hear the unbearably tragic reports coming from an
uprising in modern-day Syria. Though the historical contexts of these two
events are centuries apart from one another, I can't help but ask what
lessons the Hanukkah story might bring to bear on the sorrows of
contemporary Syria.
Aleppo has just fallen to Syrian government forces after a brutal years-long
battle with rebel groups. The carnage in Aleppo is only the latest tragedy
in a war that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and has created
millions of refugees and internally displaced Syrians. The beginning of the
war can be traced back to the Arab Spring of 2011, when pro-democracy
protests erupted in southern Syria. Government security forces opened fire,
killing several protesters. Soon there were nationwide protests demanding
President Assad's resignation. By July 2011 hundreds of thousands were
taking to the streets across the country.
As the violence escalated, the country descended into civil war. Rebel
groups were formed to battle Syrian government forces for control of cities,
towns and the countryside. While many committed to the fall of the Assad
regime continue to view this war as a revolution against an oppressive
ruler, others characterize it as a sectarian civil war between forces that
serve as proxies of larger world powers -- i.e., Russia and Iran on the side
of the Assad regime and the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in support of
certain rebel forces. The crisis is further complicated by the presence of
jihadi elements in various rebel groups.
So now to return to my original point: What on earth could this contemporary
geopolitical crisis have to do with events that took place in the Assyrian
Seleucid empire circa 168 BCE?
Some background: According to the Books of the Maccabees, the uprising of
the Maccabees began when Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed the practice of the
Jewish religion in Judea, precipitating a rebellion led by Judah Maccabee,
who belonged to a Jewish priestly family from the village of Modi'in. Many
contemporary scholars point out that while the Hanukkah story is
traditionally considered to be a struggle against religious persecution, it
was just as much a civil war between the fundamentalist Maccabees and the
assimilated Hellenized Jews, with whom Antiochus eventually threw his
support. (The Books of the Maccabees are replete with vivid descriptions of
the violence committed by Judah Maccabee and his followers against the
Hellenized Jewish community, including forced circumcision.)
The rabbis of the Talmud were not, to put it mildly, huge fans of Judah
Maccabee and his followers, and they were loath to glorify the Books of the
Maccabees -- secular stories of a violent war that were never actually
canonized as part of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, the festival of Hanukkah is
scarcely mentioned in the Talmud beyond a brief debate about how to light a
menorah and a legend about a miraculous vial of oil that burned for eight
days. Notably, the words of the prophet Zechariah, "Not by might and not by
power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts" was chosen to be recited as
the prophetic portion for the festival.
Hanukkah remained a relatively minor Jewish festival until it was
resurrected by early Zionists and the founders of the state of Israel, who
fancied themselves as modern-day Maccabees engaged in a military struggle
for political independence. At the end of his book, The Jewish State,
Zionist founder Theodor Herzl famously wrote, "The Maccabees will rise
again!" Even today, the celebration of the Maccabees as Jewish military
heroes is deeply ingrained in Israeli culture.
In more recent years, however, there has been a reconsideration of the
Hanukkah story by many contemporary rabbis, Jewish educators and academics.
Typically referred to as "the real story of Hanukkah" some advocates of this
new pedagogy assert that the Maccabees were actually a kind of "Jewish
Taliban" -- and that if they were around today they would not look too
kindly on the practice of liberal American Jews.
The evolution of the Maccabean legacy brings to mind the age-old adage, "one
person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." While some Jewish
observers do not hesitate in referring to them as "religious fanatics,"
others insist they were simply "legitimate freedom fighters doing what many
freedom fighters do." In the end, there are no easy answers to this debate.
At the very least, we might say that the story of Hanukkah invites us to
struggle deeply and honestly with the messy nature of uprising and
revolution.
Indeed, perhaps these are the central questions we are asked to confront on
Hanukkah. To Zionists who glorify the Maccabees as courageous freedom
fighters for national liberation we might well ask: Should not we then view
the Palestinians as Maccabees as well? And to those who dismiss the
Maccabees as religious extremists, we might pose the challenge: Would we
deny them their resistance against an imperialist Seleucid empire that
outlawed the practice of Judaism on pain of death?
I would submit that these kinds of questions are just as germane to the
tragic, years-long crisis in present day Syria. On the one hand, there can
be no doubt that the Assad regime, along with its Russian and Iranian
allies, has committed well-documented atrocities against its civilians as it
strikes back against rebel groups. However, these factions have carried out
their share of indiscriminate attacks on civilians as well. There has also
been fierce sectarian fighting between rebel groups themselves -- most
notably between Daesh and al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
The US, along with its Gulf state allies, continue to insist that regime
change is the only acceptable outcome to these hostilities. However, as has
historically been the case with US-sponsored "regime changes" in the Middle
East, we know that these interventions invariably lead to more, rather than
less instability. Others insist we cannot ignore the fact that this
rebellion still constitutes an uprising against a brutal totalitarian
dictator. Yet this resistance has become profoundly splintered -- and as the
US and its allies attempt to support it, they are now utterly unable to
distinguish between moderate and jihadist rebel groups.
These are the questions that are resonating for me as I retell the Hanukkah
story once again this year. And while I don't pretend to have conclusive
answers, I do have some thoughts I believe we would to well to consider as
the crisis in Syria continues on its tragic course:
As citizens of the US, our primary responsibility is to hold our government
accountable for its decisions and actions. And we must also hold it
accountable for its covert and overt military meddling in Syria at least as
far back as 1949 (when the CIA engineered a coup against the democratically
elected president Shukri-al-Quwatli and replaced him with a dictator -- a
"convicted swindler" named Husni al-Za'im).
We must also acknowledge that the Obama administration is most certainly not
insisting on regime change out of the goodness of its heart and its concern
for the welfare of the Syrian people. As ever, it has much more to do with
the military designs of Western empire. As journalist/reporter Gareth Porter
recently pointed out:
The US decision to support Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in their
ill-conceived plan to overthrow the Assad regime was primarily a function of
the primordial interest of the US permanent war state in its regional
alliances. The three Sunni allies control US access to the key US military
bases in the region, and the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department and the
Obama White House were all concerned, above all, with protecting the
existing arrangements for the US military posture in the region.
Indeed, our government's insistence on regime change has motivated the CIA
to work with odious allies to help the transfer of weapons to rebel groups
about whom they had little, if any knowledge. It also led later to the
Pentagon's decision to provide formal training and arms transfers to these
groups. Our meddling with Syria rebel groups has become so confused that we
have actually created a situation in which CIA armed militias and Pentagon
armed groups are now fighting against one another.
Those of us who are part of the Jewish community must also hold accountable
the state that purports to act in our name -- and in this regard, it is
clear Israel is shamefully exacerbating the Syrian civil war for its own
political interests. While Prime Minister Netanyahu is openly supporting
Russia's alliance with the Assad regime, his government is also aiding
al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/Jabhat Fateh al-Sham:
Examining the al-Nusra-Israeli alliance in the region, it's clear that the
bonds between the two parties have been exceedingly close. Israel maintains
a border camp for the families of Syrian fighters. Reporters have documented
Israeli Defense Forces commandos entering Syrian territory to rendezvous
with Syrian rebels. Others have photographed meetings between Israeli
military personnel and al-Nusra commanders at the Quneitra Crossing, the
ceasefire line that separates the Syrian-controlled territory and the
Israeli-occupied territory in the Golan Heights.
In other words, as Americans and as Jews, our community faces a genuine
reckoning over our complicity in the tragedy that is befalling Syria.
One final historical note that is particularly relevant to Hanukkah this
year: For centuries and until relatively recently, Aleppo was home to one of
the most notable and culturally rich Jewish communities in the world. J.
Rolando Matalon, rabbi of New York's Congregation B'nai Jeshurun -- and a
descendent of Allepan Jewry -- recently wrote this poignant reminiscence:
I grew up in Buenos Aires amidst a community of Syrian Jews. My grandparents
had left Aleppo decades earlier, but Aleppo never left them. Our lives were
infused with Aleppo's sumptuous tastes and smells, with its music, its
language, its social norms, and the memory of its streets and glorious
synagogues. Aleppo was to us simultaneously remote and intimately close,
exotic and familiar.
One particularly celebrated aspect of Allepan Jewish history dates back to
the 15th century, when the Jews of Spain were expelled following the
Alhambra Decree of 1492. This exodus of Sephardic Jews initiated a migration
and settlement throughout the Ottoman empire, including Syria. A significant
number of exiled Jews were welcomed into Aleppo, and in gratitude they began
a ritual of lighting an extra candle on Hanukkah -- a ritual that Jews of
Allepan/Syrian heritage observe even to this day.
This Hanukkah, I'll be lighting an extra candle as well -- in protest
against those who have been exploiting the violence in Syria for their own
cynical gain, in gratitude to those who have opened their homes and
communities to receive the uprooted, and in memory of the present-day
Syrians who have been killed in this cruel and needless war.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
BRANT ROSEN
Brant Rosen is the rabbi of Tzedek Chicago and the Midwest regional director
of the American Friends Service Committee.
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________________________________________
Show Comments
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Hanukkah, Syria and the Perils of Empire
Friday, December 23, 2016 By Brant Rosen, Truthout | Op-Ed
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. A front line in Aleppo, Syria, on December 12, 2012. (Photo: Tyler
Hicks / The New York Times)
. It is a tragic irony that the festival of Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday
that commemorates an ancient uprising against an oppressive Assyrian ruler,
is being observed as we hear the unbearably tragic reports coming from an
uprising in modern-day Syria. Though the historical contexts of these two
events are centuries apart from one another, I can't help but ask what
lessons the Hanukkah story might bring to bear on the sorrows of
contemporary Syria.
Aleppo has just fallen to Syrian government forces after a brutal years-long
battle with rebel groups. The carnage in Aleppo is only the latest tragedy
in a war that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and has created
millions of refugees and internally displaced Syrians. The beginning of the
war can be traced back to the Arab Spring of 2011, when pro-democracy
protests erupted in southern Syria. Government security forces opened fire,
killing several protesters. Soon there were nationwide protests demanding
President Assad's resignation. By July 2011 hundreds of thousands were
taking to the streets across the country.
As the violence escalated, the country descended into civil war. Rebel
groups were formed to battle Syrian government forces for control of cities,
towns and the countryside. While many committed to the fall of the Assad
regime continue to view this war as a revolution against an oppressive
ruler, others characterize it as a sectarian civil war between forces that
serve as proxies of larger world powers -- i.e., Russia and Iran on the side
of the Assad regime and the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in support of
certain rebel forces. The crisis is further complicated by the presence of
jihadi elements in various rebel groups.
So now to return to my original point: What on earth could this contemporary
geopolitical crisis have to do with events that took place in the Assyrian
Seleucid empire circa 168 BCE?
Some background: According to the Books of the Maccabees, the uprising of
the Maccabees began when Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed the practice of the
Jewish religion in Judea, precipitating a rebellion led by Judah Maccabee,
who belonged to a Jewish priestly family from the village of Modi'in. Many
contemporary scholars point out that while the Hanukkah story is
traditionally considered to be a struggle against religious persecution, it
was just as much a civil war between the fundamentalist Maccabees and the
assimilated Hellenized Jews, with whom Antiochus eventually threw his
support. (The Books of the Maccabees are replete with vivid descriptions of
the violence committed by Judah Maccabee and his followers against the
Hellenized Jewish community, including forced circumcision.)
The rabbis of the Talmud were not, to put it mildly, huge fans of Judah
Maccabee and his followers, and they were loath to glorify the Books of the
Maccabees -- secular stories of a violent war that were never actually
canonized as part of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, the festival of Hanukkah is
scarcely mentioned in the Talmud beyond a brief debate about how to light a
menorah and a legend about a miraculous vial of oil that burned for eight
days. Notably, the words of the prophet Zechariah, "Not by might and not by
power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts" was chosen to be recited as
the prophetic portion for the festival.
Hanukkah remained a relatively minor Jewish festival until it was
resurrected by early Zionists and the founders of the state of Israel, who
fancied themselves as modern-day Maccabees engaged in a military struggle
for political independence. At the end of his book, The Jewish State,
Zionist founder Theodor Herzl famously wrote, "The Maccabees will rise
again!" Even today, the celebration of the Maccabees as Jewish military
heroes is deeply ingrained in Israeli culture.
In more recent years, however, there has been a reconsideration of the
Hanukkah story by many contemporary rabbis, Jewish educators and academics.
Typically referred to as "the real story of Hanukkah" some advocates of this
new pedagogy assert that the Maccabees were actually a kind of "Jewish
Taliban" -- and that if they were around today they would not look too
kindly on the practice of liberal American Jews.
The evolution of the Maccabean legacy brings to mind the age-old adage, "one
person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." While some Jewish
observers do not hesitate in referring to them as "religious fanatics,"
others insist they were simply "legitimate freedom fighters doing what many
freedom fighters do." In the end, there are no easy answers to this debate.
At the very least, we might say that the story of Hanukkah invites us to
struggle deeply and honestly with the messy nature of uprising and
revolution.
Indeed, perhaps these are the central questions we are asked to confront on
Hanukkah. To Zionists who glorify the Maccabees as courageous freedom
fighters for national liberation we might well ask: Should not we then view
the Palestinians as Maccabees as well? And to those who dismiss the
Maccabees as religious extremists, we might pose the challenge: Would we
deny them their resistance against an imperialist Seleucid empire that
outlawed the practice of Judaism on pain of death?
I would submit that these kinds of questions are just as germane to the
tragic, years-long crisis in present day Syria. On the one hand, there can
be no doubt that the Assad regime, along with its Russian and Iranian
allies, has committed well-documented atrocities against its civilians as it
strikes back against rebel groups. However, these factions have carried out
their share of indiscriminate attacks on civilians as well. There has also
been fierce sectarian fighting between rebel groups themselves -- most
notably between Daesh and al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
The US, along with its Gulf state allies, continue to insist that regime
change is the only acceptable outcome to these hostilities. However, as has
historically been the case with US-sponsored "regime changes" in the Middle
East, we know that these interventions invariably lead to more, rather than
less instability. Others insist we cannot ignore the fact that this
rebellion still constitutes an uprising against a brutal totalitarian
dictator. Yet this resistance has become profoundly splintered -- and as the
US and its allies attempt to support it, they are now utterly unable to
distinguish between moderate and jihadist rebel groups.
These are the questions that are resonating for me as I retell the Hanukkah
story once again this year. And while I don't pretend to have conclusive
answers, I do have some thoughts I believe we would to well to consider as
the crisis in Syria continues on its tragic course:
As citizens of the US, our primary responsibility is to hold our government
accountable for its decisions and actions. And we must also hold it
accountable for its covert and overt military meddling in Syria at least as
far back as 1949 (when the CIA engineered a coup against the democratically
elected president Shukri-al-Quwatli and replaced him with a dictator -- a
"convicted swindler" named Husni al-Za'im).
We must also acknowledge that the Obama administration is most certainly not
insisting on regime change out of the goodness of its heart and its concern
for the welfare of the Syrian people. As ever, it has much more to do with
the military designs of Western empire. As journalist/reporter Gareth Porter
recently pointed out:
The US decision to support Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in their
ill-conceived plan to overthrow the Assad regime was primarily a function of
the primordial interest of the US permanent war state in its regional
alliances. The three Sunni allies control US access to the key US military
bases in the region, and the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department and the
Obama White House were all concerned, above all, with protecting the
existing arrangements for the US military posture in the region.
Indeed, our government's insistence on regime change has motivated the CIA
to work with odious allies to help the transfer of weapons to rebel groups
about whom they had little, if any knowledge. It also led later to the
Pentagon's decision to provide formal training and arms transfers to these
groups. Our meddling with Syria rebel groups has become so confused that we
have actually created a situation in which CIA armed militias and Pentagon
armed groups are now fighting against one another.
Those of us who are part of the Jewish community must also hold accountable
the state that purports to act in our name -- and in this regard, it is
clear Israel is shamefully exacerbating the Syrian civil war for its own
political interests. While Prime Minister Netanyahu is openly supporting
Russia's alliance with the Assad regime, his government is also aiding
al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/Jabhat Fateh al-Sham:
Examining the al-Nusra-Israeli alliance in the region, it's clear that the
bonds between the two parties have been exceedingly close. Israel maintains
a border camp for the families of Syrian fighters. Reporters have documented
Israeli Defense Forces commandos entering Syrian territory to rendezvous
with Syrian rebels. Others have photographed meetings between Israeli
military personnel and al-Nusra commanders at the Quneitra Crossing, the
ceasefire line that separates the Syrian-controlled territory and the
Israeli-occupied territory in the Golan Heights.
In other words, as Americans and as Jews, our community faces a genuine
reckoning over our complicity in the tragedy that is befalling Syria.
One final historical note that is particularly relevant to Hanukkah this
year: For centuries and until relatively recently, Aleppo was home to one of
the most notable and culturally rich Jewish communities in the world. J.
Rolando Matalon, rabbi of New York's Congregation B'nai Jeshurun -- and a
descendent of Allepan Jewry -- recently wrote this poignant reminiscence:
I grew up in Buenos Aires amidst a community of Syrian Jews. My grandparents
had left Aleppo decades earlier, but Aleppo never left them. Our lives were
infused with Aleppo's sumptuous tastes and smells, with its music, its
language, its social norms, and the memory of its streets and glorious
synagogues. Aleppo was to us simultaneously remote and intimately close,
exotic and familiar.
One particularly celebrated aspect of Allepan Jewish history dates back to
the 15th century, when the Jews of Spain were expelled following the
Alhambra Decree of 1492. This exodus of Sephardic Jews initiated a migration
and settlement throughout the Ottoman empire, including Syria. A significant
number of exiled Jews were welcomed into Aleppo, and in gratitude they began
a ritual of lighting an extra candle on Hanukkah -- a ritual that Jews of
Allepan/Syrian heritage observe even to this day.
This Hanukkah, I'll be lighting an extra candle as well -- in protest
against those who have been exploiting the violence in Syria for their own
cynical gain, in gratitude to those who have opened their homes and
communities to receive the uprooted, and in memory of the present-day
Syrians who have been killed in this cruel and needless war.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Brant Rosen
Brant Rosen is the rabbi of Tzedek Chicago and the Midwest regional director
of the American Friends Service Committee.
Related Stories
Syria's White Helmets - the Most Dangerous Job In the World
By Anna Lekas Miller, Waging Nonviolence | ReportSyria: the Way Forward,
Without Illusions
By Dr. James J. Zogby, Arab American Institute | News AnalysisSyrian
Refugees Say if Western Countries Close Their Borders, It "Would Be Better
to Die"
By Deena Guzder, Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
Show Comments
