Chanukah and Gaza: History and Memory
Happy Chanukah,
Chanukah may be the most contested holiday on the Jewish calendar. The history that gave rise to the holiday is the subject of two ancient books that are not included in the Tanach (the Hebrew bible).
The First Book of Maccabees presents the events as a revolt of pious Jews against the Seleucid Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who defiled the Temple and sought to suppress circumcision, observance of Shabbat, kashrut, and other practices mandated by Jewish law. The uprising began in 167 BCE and was led by the family of Judah Maccabee. They succeeded and a quarter of a century later established the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled Judea until 37 BCE. The Hasmoneans enjoyed a relatively brief period of independence from 129 to 63 BCE but were more often vassals of the Seleucids or the Romans. They conquered Samaria, Transjordan, and Idumea (Edom) and forced the Idumeans to convert to Judaism. They became corrupt oppressors. The Hasmonean dynasty collapsed in a civil war that ultimately led to direct Roman rule over Judea. Nonetheless, the author of First Maccabees, likely a court historian, portrays the Hasmoneans as pious rulers.
The Second Book of Maccabees presents the events as a struggle between rural Jewish traditionalists and Hellenizing Jews in Jerusalem who eagerly embraced aspects of Greek culture which they viewed as the most sophisticated of the era. Modern scholars tend to accept elements of the perspective of Second Maccabeesand understand the revolt as a civil war between traditionalist and reformist Jews.
The Talmudic rabbis (3rd to 6th centuries CE) disapproved of glorifying the military and dynastic history of Chanukah. They were wary of celebrating human military power and a conflict that pitted Jews against Jews. They disliked the Hasmonean dynasty’s embrace of the Sadducees who were associated with the priesthood and their elitist interpretation of Jewish law. They objected to the Hasmoneans having combined kingship and the high priesthood. The Talmud introduced the story of the Maccabees finding only a single cruse of the sanctified olive oil required to light the menorah and rededicate the Temple that miraculously burned for eight days when it should have lasted only one day. This placed divine intervention rather than human military power at the center of the holiday.
In the Hasmonean era (as in the earlier era of the kingdoms of Judea and Israel) the Judeans (the term “Jews” was not yet used) were not united. Rulers who may have initially been motivated by high ideals eventually prioritized their personal power, abused potentially rival family members, aligned with elitist religious authorities, conquered and coerced neighboring peoples, and pursued policies that ultimately undermined Jewish independence and opened the door for Rome to assert its direct rule over Judea.
Popular Jewish culture in North America rarely invokes this history. Remembering these things is not central to celebrating Chanukah as a festival of lights at the darkest time of the year, as a commemoration of a miraculous tale of oil, or as the Jewish substitute for Christmas. Israeli popular culture also does not prioritize remembering this history. It might raise questions about the common Israeli understanding of the holiday as a celebration of Jewish military prowess.
How will American Jewish and Israeli popular culture remember the current Israeli war on Gaza? Several recent Israeli accounts document actions of soldiers that belie the narrative that this is a war of self-defense for Israel.
Nir Hasson describes at length in Haaretz weekly magazine (Dec. 5, 2024) the 124 page data base with over 1,400 footnotes referencing thousands of eyewitness reports, video footage, investigatory materials, articles and photographs compiled by Hebrew University historian, Professor Lee Mordechai – Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War. According to Hasson, Prof. Mordechai’s data base,
constitutes the most methodical and detailed documentation … of the war crimes that Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. It is a shocking indictment comprised of thousands of entries relating to the war, to the actions of the government, the media, the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli society in general.
Prof. Mordechai’s data describe IDF soldiers “shooting civilians waving white flags, abus[ing]… individuals, captives and corpses, gleefully damaging or destroying houses, various structures and institutions, religious sites and looting personal belongings, as well as randomly firing their weapons, shooting local animals, destroying private property, burning books within libraries, defacing Palestinian and Islamic symbols (including burning Qurans and turning mosques into dining spaces).”
Yaniv Kubovich (Haaretz, Dec. 18, 2024) investigated IDF atrocities in the Netzarim Corridor which divides the southern Gaza Strip from the northern section where, according to former IDF chief-of-staff and Minister of Defense Moshe (Boogie) Ya‘alon, Israel has, since October, been conducting an “ethnic cleansing” operation targeting the 70-100,000 Palestinians still enduring there. Kubovich reports that IDF soldiers told him about “Arbitrary Killings and Rampant Lawlessness in Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor.”
“It's military whitewashing," explains a senior officer in Division 252, who has served three reserve rotations in Gaza. "The division commander designated this area as a 'kill zone.' Anyone who enters is shot.”
“Calling ourselves the world's most moral army absolves soldiers who know exactly what we're doing,” says a senior reserve commander who has recently returned from the Netzarim corridor. “It means ignoring that for over a year, we've operated in a lawless space where human life holds no value. Yes, we commanders and combatants are participating in the atrocity unfolding in Gaza. Now everyone must face this reality.”
“An officer in Division 252's command recalls when the IDF spokesperson announced their forces had killed over 200 militants. “Standard procedure requires photographing bodies and collecting details when possible, then sending evidence to intelligence to verify militant status or at least confirm they were killed by the IDF,” he explains. “Of those 200 casualties, only ten were confirmed as known Hamas operatives. Yet no one questioned the public announcement about killing hundreds of militants.”
Soldiers who report atrocities are the ones most likely to suffer moral and psychological damage from participating in such actions.
Prof. Emeritus Yoel Elizur, former Head of the Clinical Child & Educational Psychology Program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and former chair of the Israeli Council of Psychologists, contributed a Haaretz opinion article (Dec. 23, 2023) entitled “‘When You Leave Israel and Enter Gaza,You Are God’: Inside the Minds of IDF Soldiers Who Commit War Crimes.” Elizur describes a social psychological study he co-authored with his PhD student, Nuphar Ishay-Krien, who had been the social welfare officer for two IDF infantry companies in the Gaza Strip during the first intifada (1987-93). She studied the psychological damage and moral injuries of soldiers in units that committed atrocities in this period.
Ishay-Krien and Elizur identified five categories of soldiers: 1) a small group of “Callous” soldiers committed the most severe atrocities, “some of whom confessed to violence before the draft”; 2) a small group of “Ideologically Violent” soldiers “believed in Jewish supremacy and were derogatory toward Arabs” and “supported the brutality without taking part”; 3) a small group of “Incorruptible” soldiers “opposed the influence of the callous and ideological groups” on their unit’s culture”; 4) a large group of “Followers” joined those committing atrocities and suffered psycho-moral injuries as a result. One of them testified, “I felt like, like, like a Nazi ... it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews.” 5) a large group of “Restrained,” “inner-directed soldiers… maintained military standards and did not commit atrocities.”
A permissive culture towards atrocities was shaped by junior officers and charismatic soldiers. One soldier reported:
A new commander came to us. We went out with him on the first patrol at six in the morning. He stops. There's not a soul in the streets, just a little 4-year-old boy playing in the sand in his yard. The commander suddenly starts running, grabs the boy, and breaks his arm at the elbow and his leg here. Stepped on his stomach three times and left. We all stood there with our mouths open. Looking at him in shock ... I asked the commander: "What’s your story?" He told me: These kids need to be killed from the day they are born. When a commander does that, it becomes legit."
Ishay-Krien and Elizur’s research was based on the operations of Israeli soldiers in Gaza over three decades ago. What has changed since then? Elizur observed similar categories of soldiers in the current Gaza war. But the size of “the Callous and Ideologically Violent groups appear[s] to be larger [and they are] more extreme.”
Elizur concludes, “[O]ur government's rhetoric of hatred and revenge, which has been reinforced by its determined undermining of the justice system, led to excessive retaliation and mass killing of civilians in Gaza. It provided a tailwind for atrocities by Callous and Ideologically Violent soldiers, increased their influence over the Followers, and sidelined the Incorruptible.
Like all governments, the Israeli government lies about its crimes. Since we are not living in the ancient world, we can know this in real time. But this alone will not determine how these events are remembered.
NOTE: My apologies for being inconsistent in writing since October 7, 2023. I hope, but can’t promise, to be more regular.