Tonight is the first night of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, Chanukah.Only part of the story was the Maccabees fight for getting the Greeks out of Israel, and the cleansing and dedication of the Temple. The Chanukah Story was also about a civil war amongst the Jews. Judah and the boys were fighting other Jews who had turned away from their faith by combining it with Greek/Hellenistic practices. The resulting assimilation caused a loss of Jewish faith and tradition, and finally laws against practicing Jewish ritual. Chanukah is a holiday about Jews fighting against assimilation, but the ACLU-types would have us celebrate it by assimilating.
Chag Chanukah Samayach. Happy Chanukah Holiday. Yamit
by rabbi Meir Kahane H”YD
If I were a Reform rabbi; if I were a leader of the Establishment whose money and prestige have succeeded in capturing for him the leadership and voice of American Jewry; if I were one of the members of the Israeli Government’s ruling group; if I were an enlightened sophisticated, modern Jewish intellectual, I would climb the barricades and join in battle against the most dangerous of all Jewish holidays – Chanukah.
It is a measure of the total ignorance of the world Jewish community that there is no holiday that is more universally celebrated than the “Feast of Lights”, and it is an equal measure of the intellectual dishonesty and of Jewish leadership that it plays along with the lie. For if ever there was a holiday that stands for everything that the mass of world Jewry and their leadership has rejected – it is this one. If one would find an event that is truly rooted in everything that Jews of our times and their leaders have rejected and, indeed, attacked – it is this one. If there is any holiday that is more “unJewish” in the sense of our modern beliefs and practices – I do not know of it.
The Chanukah that has erupted unto the world Jewish scene in all its childishness, asininity, shallowness, ignorance and fraud – is not the Chanukah of reality. The Chanukah that came into vogue because of Jewish parents – in their vapidness – needed something to counteract Christmas; that exploded in a show of “we-can-have-lights-just-as-our-goyish-neighbors” and in an effort to reward our spoiled children with eight gifts instead of the poor Christian one; the Chanukah that the Temple, under its captive rabbi, turned into a school pageant so that the beaming parents might think that the Religious School is really successful instead of the tragic joke and waste that it really is; the Chanukah that speaks of Jewish Patrick Henrys giving-me-liberty-or death and the pictures of Maccabees as great liberal saviors who fought so that the kibbutzim might continue to be free to preach their Marx and eat their ham, that the split-level dwellers of suburbia might be allowed to violate their Sabbath in perfect freedom and the Reform and Conservative Temples continue the fight for civil rights for Blacks, Puerto Ricans and Jane Fonda, is not remotely connected with reality.
This is NOT the Chanukah of our ancestors, of the generations of Jews of Eastern Europe and Yemen and Morocco and the crusades and Spain and Babylon. It is surely not the Chanukah for which the Maccabees themselves died. Truly, could those whom we honor so munificently, return and see what Chanukah has become, they might very well begin a second Maccabean revolt. For the life that we Jews lead today was the very cause, the REAL reason for the revolt of the Jews “in those days in our times.”
What happened in that era more than 2000 years ago? What led a handful of Jews to rise up in violence against the enemy? And precisely who WAS the enemy? What were they fighting FOR and who were they fighting AGAINST?
For years, the people of Judea had been the vassals of Greece. True independence as a state had been unknown for all those decades and, yet, the Jews did not rise up in revolt. It was only when the Greek policy shifted from mere political control to one that attempted to suppress the Jewish religion that the revolt erupted in all its bloodiness. It was not mere liberty that led to the Maccabean uprising that we so passionately applaud. What we are really cheering is a brave group of Jews who fought and plunged Judea into a bloodbath for the right to observe the Sabbath, to follow the laws of kashruth, to obey the laws of the Torah. IN A WORD EVERYTHING ABOUT CHANUKAH THAT WE COMMEMORATE AND TEACH OUR CHILDREN TO COMMEMORATE ARE THINGS WE CONSIDER TO BE OUTMODED, MEDIEVAL AND CHILDISH!
At best, then, those who fought and died for Chanukah were naïve and obscurantist. Had we lived in those days we would certainly not have done what they did for everyone knows that the laws of the Torah are not really Divine but only the products of evolution and men (do not the Reform, Reconstructionist and large parts of the Conservative movements write this daily?) Surely we would not have fought for that which we violate every day of our lives! No, at best Chanukah emerges as a needless holiday if not a foolish one. Poor Hannah and her seven children; poor Mattathias and Judah; poor well meaning chaps all but hopelessly backward and utterly unnecessary sacrifices.
But there is more. Not only is Chanukah really a foolish and unnecessary holiday, it is also one that is dangerously fanatical and illiberal. The first act of rebellion, the first enemy who fell at the hands of the brave Jewish heroes whom our delightful children portray so cleverly in their Sunday and religious school pageants, was NOT a Greek. He was a Jew.
When the enemy sent its troops into the town of Modin to set up an idol and demand its worship, it was a Jew who decided to exercise his freedom of pagan worship and who approached the altar to worship Zeus (after all, what business was it of anyone what this fellow worshipped?) And it was this Jew, this apostate, this religious traitor who was struck down by the brave, glorious, courageous (are these not the words all our Sunday schools use to describe him?) Mattathias, as he shouted: “Whoever is for G-d, follow me!”
What have we here? What kind of religious intolerance and bigotry? What kind of a man is this for the anti-religious of Hashomer Hatzair, the graceful temples of suburbia, the sophisticated intellectuals, the liberal open-minded Jews and all the drones who have wearied us unto death with the concept of Judaism as a humanistic, open-minded, undogmatic, liberal, universalistic (if not Marxist) religion, to honor? What kind of nationalism is this for David-Ben-Gurion (he who rejects the Galut and speaks of the proud, free Jew of ancient Judea and Israel)?
And to crush us even more (we who know that Judaism is a faith of peace which deplores violence), what kind of Jews were these who reacted to oppression with FORCE? Surely we who so properly have deplored Jewish violence as fascistic, immoral and (above all!) UN-JEWISH, stand in horror as we contemplate Jews who declined to picket the Syrian Greeks to death and who rejected quiet diplomacy for the sword, spear and arrow (had there been bombs in those days, who can tell what they might have done?) and “descended to the level of evil,” thus rejecting the ethical and moral concepts of Judaism.
Is this the kind of a holiday we wish to propagate? Are these the kinds of men we want our moral and humanistic children to honor? Is this the kind of Judaism that we wish to observe and pass on to our children?
Where shall we find the man of courage the one voice, in the wilderness to cry out against Chanukah and the Judaism that it represents-the Judaism of our grandparents and ancestors? Where shall we find the man of honesty and integrity to attack the Judaism of Medievalism and outdated foolishness; the Judaism of bigotry that strikes down Jews who refuse to observe the law; the Judaism of violence that calls for Jewish force and might against the enemy? When shall we find the courage to proudly eat our Chinese food and violate our Sabbaths and reject all the separateness, nationalism and religious maximalism that Chanukah so ignobly represents? …Down with Chanukah! It is a regressive holiday that merely symbolizes the Judaism that always was; the Judaism that was handed down to us from Sinai; the Judaism that made our ancestors ready to give their lives for the L-rd; the Judaism that young people instinctively know is true and great and real. Such Judaism is dangerous for us and our leaders. We must do all in our power to bury it.
My understanding is that Alexander the Great held his empire together by, among other things, allowing religious freedom (so Jews had no reason to resist or turn on him). His successor Antiochus wasn’t as smart, so he got himself a revolution by trying to force his religion on his subjects.
PS – this is the lesson that AE fails to recognize also. In his mind it is the american government that guarantees our survival – poppycock – It is Hashem that provides this. Chag Hanukah Sameach!
A story is told about the freezing days and nights at Valley Forge when General Washington tried to rally his tattered troops against the mercenaries of the British empire. On one bitter cold night Washington made the rounds encouraging his men to hold on until morning. He came across one young man lighting a small oil lamp in a dark cold corner of his tattered tent. The general stopped to offer some warm words of encouragement. When he bent down he said, “I see you brought your own heat from home. Well done!” The soldier looked up startled at the VIP visitor and told the general, ”No sir, I am not even allowed to have any benefit from this candle. It is holy, it is a Chanukah candle commemorating the victory of my persecuted forefathers over the vast Greek armies of oppression in the Land of Israel.” The general paused and said, “Son, you have given me the greatest encouragement possible. I am confident that we too will overcome the odds and defeat tyranny in our land”
Years later, after the war, a knock brought the young Jewish veteran to the door of his New York apartment. It was now-President Washington at the door. He brought a medallion with him. On one side were the words “ Valley Forge”, On the other was Chanukah: “In those days in these times”.
In order to withstand the Romans, Antiochus needed to unify his disparate empire — an empire which consisted of once-proud kingdoms such as Judea, Syria, Babylonia, Persia, etc. He hoped to effect unity by instituting Hellenism as the state religion. He pushed the Jews too far in this, and they revolted. The rest is Hanukkah.
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Hanukkah for
DhimmisDummiesHanukkah is often called “the Jewish Christmas” because it takes place at about the same time of year. There is in fact a very strong connection between the two holidays; had it not been for the events that Hanukkah commemorates, there would be no Christmas. Hanukkah is about standing up to those who menace one’s home, family, or way of life as opposed to singing Kumbaya with them.
We have often pointed out that science fiction and fantasy societies are based on real human societies, and the one in Battlestar Galactica is no exception. We suspect that it is an alternate history in which Michael Lerner of Tikkun.org and Eric Yoffie of the United “American” “Hebrew” Congregations (now the Union for “Reform Judaism”) were in charge of the Jewish people when the Greeks demanded that the Jews worship the Greek idols. As stated by Yoffie at the Million Mom March rally in 2000,
We’re going to find out who’s getting NRA funds, and benefiting from NRA ads, and we’re going to vote for the other guy. The American people, I believe, are ready for a leader who will take on the fanatics and support sensible gun control. Controlling guns is not only a political matter, it is a solemn religious obligation. Our gun-flooded society has turned weapons into idols, and the worship of idols must be recognized for what it is-blasphemy.
With “Jewish” leadership like this, of course, the Maccabees (who would probably have been jailed by the Yoffie-led Hebrews for owning unlicensed and unregistered swords) would have lost the war, and the ex-Jews would then have ended up worshiping genuine honest-to-the-gods graven images. The result would have been a space-faring civilization like that in Battlestar Galactica, where spaceship pilots carry little Greek idols to which they pray on a regular basis. Jesus would then have been an idol-worshiper like everyone else, and the Christian religion would have never existed.Hanukkah is therefore about defending one’s home, family, and country: a concept totally repugnant to the Kumbaya-singers. The war between the Maccabees and the Greeks was only the first in which Jews had to fight for their survival.
Two thousand or so years later, Minutemen used privately-owned firearms in the American War of Independence to create a country with freedom of religion. Many Jews emigrated from Europe and came to America so they could practice Judaism without having to worry about pogroms by Inquisitions, Cossacks, and the like.
In 1943, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto revolted against the Nazis. “The first armed resistance occurred when a 17- year-old [idolator and fanatic per Eric Yoffie] named Emily Landau flung a grenade into a cluster of SS men from a rooftop on Gesia Street, killing or wounding a dozen of them. The SS promptly assaulted the building with submachine guns blazing, only to be met by a volley of return fire that felled four or five Germans and drove the rest back in disorder. Emily Landau was bending down to recover a pistol from a slain SS officer when she was struck by a bullet fired by a German rifleman covering his comrades’ retreat. [She died trying to recover an "idol," which proves her a fanatic, right, Mr. Yoffie?] The first to fight, she was also the first to die” (Jon Guttmann, “Genocide Delayed”).
In 1947, Jews founded the Nation of Israel in the face of immense hardships. Its Arab neighbors invaded so the “idolators and fanatics” fought back desperately with whatever firearms they could buy, beg, borrow, or steal. If it had been up to Yoffie and the Union of “American” “Hebrew” Congregations, the Arabs would have overrun the Jews and thrown them into the sea. (Recommended viewing: “Cast a Giant Shadow” with Kirk Douglas as Col. Mickey Marcus.)
Physical cowardice and elitism are the elephants in the gun controllers’ living room, the ones that everyone knows about but no one wants to acknowledge. Ownership of a weapon requires the implicit acceptance of the idea that one may have to fight and possibly die to protect oneself or those for whose safety one is responsible: an idea that is repugnant to the typical gun control supporter or Kumbaya-singer (and the two usually go hand in hand).
This position is reinforced by the fact that some societies (e.g. feudal Japan, Polish Commonwealth) actually required their gentry to carry or at least own weapons, as an explicit symbol of their responsibility to defend that society. We therefore recommend that the gun control movement replace its handgun with a red line through it with a white feather. We recommend, in fact, that gun registration and confiscation advocates send one another white feathers by way of greeting, perhaps on September 30 (the anniversary of Neville Chamberlain’s Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler).
There is meanwhile a bumper sticker that says, “Free men own weapons, slaves don’t.” It would be more precise to say, “Slaves are ISSUED weapons, free people OWN them.” Many countries with strict gun control laws conscript their subjects into their armies, where they are issued weapons, and this practice dates to antiquity. The ancient Greeks employed Scythian slaves as police, whose tasks included rounding up negligent citizens who failed to show up for a public vote. Turkish Janissaries were the property of the state, albeit sufficiently privileged that many parents hoped their sons would be taken to serve as Janissaries. The Greek citizen, on the other hand, was not only permitted to own weapons but was in fact expected to show up armed with his own weapons during time of war. Service as a hoplite or armored infantryman was therefore the privilege of those who could afford the costly armor; lesser men were slingers, archers, and so on. A Polish szlachta or nobleman was similarly required to present himself along with his personally owned horse and weapons for military service. The government paid only for his lances, which were both expensive and expendable. There was a time in England when it was illegal to practice any sport but archery on Sundays, because the kings wanted a ready supply of longbowmen in case there was a war. The rulers in question obviously did not fear assassination or “voting from the rooftops” because a longbowman was quite capable of taking somebody out at well over 200 paces, and Queen Elizabeth’s speech at Tilbury says emphatically that she did not fear weapons in the hands of her loyal subjects.
These precedents leave little doubt as to the Founding Fathers’ interpretation of the Second Amendment; the right to keep and bear arms was already, and in countries other than the United States, instrumental to a nation’s possession of a strong militia. It emphatically did not refer to a National Guard (an institution that had yet to be invented) whose members were issued weapons. We are truly amazed that four Supreme Court Justices including Ruth Bader Ginsberg had a problem with this elementary concept that is easily understandable by anybody with even a high school mastery of civics and the English language.
The bottom line was stated in a movie about the life of Jesus: “Those who live by the sword kill those who have no swords and go on living.” History’s most vicious conquerors and genocidal maniacs have indeed lived quite well by the sword unless and until they picked a fight with the wrong people, who invariably also had swords as opposed to flowers and peace signs.
Some gun control supporters are, however, former police officers and soldiers; people who are obviously not afraid to bear arms. Their position is apparently that of elitist medieval overlords who wanted a monopoly on the means of violence. There were times when feudal Japan banned commoners from owning even knives. not to control crime, of which there is relatively little in Japanese society, but to prevent the commoners from defending themselves against sword-wielding samurai. Medieval knights similarly hated the crossbow, which allowed a commoner to shoot even the bluest-blooded nobleman from his saddle.
Finally we have elitist cowards like Rosie O’ Donnell and the late Ted Kennedy. Both employed armed bodyguards while demanding strict gun laws for commoners. Elitists want a monopoly on the means of violence, and cowards are unwilling to bear arms themselves. Niccolo Machievelli wrote a long time ago that you cannot pay a man enough to die for you, but O’ Donnell and Kennedy apparently believe otherwise. (We add in 2008 that Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, who has allegedly tried to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat, also opposes gun ownership by law-abiding people. If he is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, he will be just one more common criminal who doesn’t want honest people to own guns. We add in 2009 that gun control advocate Bobby Rush, D-IL, also is a common criminal and a former member of an organization, the Black Panthers, that advocated the murder of police officers.)
On a larger scale, the Kumbaya-singers want to disarm the world’s democracies to avoid threatening tin-pot dictatorships like North Korea and Iran. The Kumbaya-singers think it’s fine and dandy for those dictatorships to have the means of killing millions of innocent people, because they assume that Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are Kumbaya-singers just like Jimmy Carter and themselves. This is of course a manifestation of their personal cowardice, because they are afraid to even think that Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might actually set off a nuclear weapon in New York City or Los Angeles. As Herman Kahn wrote of nuclear war, refusal to think about the unthinkable makes the unthinkable not only thinkable, but likely.
A large number of Christians are starting to point out that Christmas is not about shopping malls, plastic Santas, and so on. It is past time for Jews to remember what Hanukkah is really about, and it has very little to do with anything the Jewish Left represents.
4 Responses to Hanukkah for
DhimmisDummiesI’m an American gun-owner, and my right to keep and bear arms for purposes of self-protection is as precious to me as any other right that I know of. Maybe even more so. Because if I lose my life to an aggressor because I was purposely disarmed by my own government, then what good were any other rights.
There is a State of Israel today solely because the best men and women of the Jewish nation decided to take up arms to defend their right to reclaim and retake their ancient homeland. Armed Jews are the only ones I ever have saluted or otherwise honored and ever have seen fit to emulate. Not for nothing do I serve the National Rifle Association as election volunteer coordinator in the Wisconsin 2nd congressional district for the IRA Institute of Legislative Affairs (NRA-ILA). Our state of Wisconsin has been one of only two states that banned and rights of citizens to obtain permits for concealed carry of firearms. But now we have just elected a solid conservative leadership of the office of the governor, of the state senate and the state assembly. So I have it on good authority that appropriate concealed carry leglislation is one of the first legislative passages that will be dealt with shortly after the new leadership is sworn into office on Jan 3, 2011.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI