Authentic, Compassionate Judaism For The Thinking Person

These are my reflections upon Arnold Eisen's 2015 essay, "Joseph, Hanukkah, and the Dilemmas of Assimilation."  Those who investigate the Hanukkah story quickly learn (simply by reading the Books of Maccabees in the apocrypha) that the events around the 186 BCE revolt of the Maccabees against the Hellenizing-Syrians do not involve a miracle of oil.  Rather, following the decree by Antiochus IV that the Temple in Jerusalem be dedicated to Hellistic religion, the Maccabees first attack Hellenized Jews themselves, who show little to no resistance to the decree.  (Josephus tells us, more or less, that the Greek sports stadium in Jerusalem was a far better draw to local Jews than the Temple.)  The second part of the story involves the Maccabees attacking the Syrian-Greek forces themselves, and achieving victory.  (Two hundred years later, living under the oppression of the Roman forces, and witnessing Roman massacres of Jews following rebellions, the Rabbis introduced the folktale of the oil to distract Jews from