OxBlog

Comments:

This isn't the worst idea I've ever heard, but it would have a certain irony. The Maccabees -- the Jewish heroes of the traditional Chanukkah story -- started out as extreme religious conservatives. One could, in fact, see them as the mullahs of their time. And their main concern was to purify the Temple by eliminating hellenistic (i.e., "western") influence from Judean life. Their military tactics resembled what we would could terrorism. I have no doubt that, had nuclear weapons been available at the time, Judah Maccabee would have tried as hard as he could to get them.

The parallel can also be reassuring. The Maccabee's descendants, in fairly short order, became the Hasmonean dynasty: accomplished hellenizers themselves.

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:20 PM

Of course, Iran has no such locations in the United States.

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:25 PM

How about in front of all those Persian carpet stores? Maybe we could light some Chanukah candles there. ;)

# posted by

Ariel David Adesnik : 3:50 PM

Good point. Harassing small business owners violates the spirit of capitalism. Let's harass the employees of those businesses instead. ;)

# posted by

Ariel David Adesnik : 8:56 PM

Iran has an interests section in DC. A candle lighting vigil is being organized for December 27 in the US capital. No need to harass Persian owned businesses. Let's focus on the institutional sites only, the people and the regime are not the same.

The parallel between the Maccabees and the mullahs forgets that the hellenizing influence against which the Maccabees fought was being imposed under the pain of death and through the prohibition to worship freely. So, while the Maccabees would today strike us as religious zealots, in their time they were fighting for the right to practice their religion against a colonizing power that forbade them to do so. It was not just 'influence', it was foreign domination and oppression. Let's not forget that.

# posted by

Anonymous : 4:56 AM

Emanuele:

"It was foreign domination and oppression."

Really? Didn't the conflict also have aspects of a civil war between a modernizing urban elite, which was open to the world, and the rural priesthood, which may have been afraid of losing afraid of losing its perqs?

To be sure, Judea was part of a global empire -- a "colonizing power", as you say -- that backed the hellenizers. But the Islamist mullahs could comfortably co-opt that analogy.

Of course, we're both wandering around in a fog. Most of what we know about the Chanukah story comes to us via Hasmonean propaganda. And I'm probably taking this whole discussion much too seriously. But I do think its important, especially when reacting to Iran right now, to distinguish as clearly as we can between myths and established facts.

Happy Chanukah!

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:19 AM

in their time they were fighting for the right to practice their religion against a colonizing power that forbade them to do so

Indeed, and further, all representatives of such colonizing powers who forbid others to practice their religion (for example, by building walls cutting them off from their holy places) are equally deserving of such candle-studded protests, right?

Right????

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:59 AM

"(for example, by building walls cutting them off from their holy places)"

If youre implying that Israels wall cuts Pals off from their holy places, you are incorrect AFAIK. There are crossings enabling Pals to get into Jerusalem. And of course the whole wall wouldnt have been necessary if it wasnt for terrorism.

But I suppose whenever anybody mentions Iran its just a reflex to make a moral equivalency with Israel.

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:20 PM

I think you'd fit right in with the Party of God, CS.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:10 PM