a few weeks ago I was watching The Daily Show on Comedy Central where John Stewart was interviewing Adam Goldberg on his movie THE HEBREW HAMMER (which I’ve taped but haven’t yet watched)- they were making fun of Hannukah & the big deal about it being in a tone of mock reverence “THE OIL LASTED EIGHT DAYS!”
Gentile Christian here and I was dismayed. OK, neither of them seem to be observant Jews (Adam definitely isn’t, by his admission), but dammit, even secular Jews can take some pride from the real Hannukah story- that their people kicked Imperial Gentile Assimilationist Pagan @$$!
So rock on, Maccabees, and may the Jewish entertainment community give ya much overdue Kudos!
Let’s hear it for Judah the Macabee
Who followed Daddy into battle in 167 BCE
When King Antiochus’s little dig
of going to the Temple to butcher a pig
got Daddy mad enough to kill and lead a war
(although he’d only live one year more)
Sons one and two apparently weren’t all so large
So Judah the third took over and led the charge
Never one to sit around and yammer
he attacked so hard he was called The Hammer
In two more short years they’d won the war
It was December of one hundred and sixtey four
Tradition goes on about temple lights
And miracles of eight long nights
Who knows if that part is true
But light that menorah if you are a Jew
(The real miracle is the awesome fact
that we eat those latkes without immediate heart attack!)
If only the story ended there
This minor holidays place in history would be clear
Unfortunately the rest gets somewhat sad
For Macabees made for rulers bad.
They killed and killed while drinking wine
It was a horrible moral and religious decline.
A war broke out in 63
When two Hasmonean brothers couldn’t agree
Tired of fighting they left their fate
To Roman powers invited to adjudicate
General Pompey knew how to settle this
From then on Romans ruled with iron fist
So began the end of Israel’s days of yore
Rebellions failed and Rome just killed some more
Eventually the Jews in Israel did disappate
Without an Israel until 1948
Let’s try to do it right this time
Cause I’m not very good at this thing called rhyme
And to commemerate the War to be not Greek
Christmas like presents do I seek
For Hannukah’s current fate
is to give our kids a chance to assimilate.
It may be ironic but I’ll tell you
That’s what happens when you’re an American Jew
From my memory (which is admitedly flakey), they were discussing the relative unimportance of Hanukkah compared to other Jewish holidays, especially considering the immense media attention it receives because of Christmas.
Yeah, Hanukkah is important, but not nearly as important as the High Holidays, Sabbath, and many others. The primary reason being It’s not mentioned in the Torah.
BTW - The Hebrew Hammer is great. But I’m not sure if you’ll get all the “inside jokes.”
“Let’s hear it for the Maccabees”? If not for the Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes might have succeeded in stamping out Judaism – and the modern world would be free of both Christianity and Islam! The Maccabees just fucked everything up!
There is a feeling in Judaism which is somewhat parallel to the “Christ back in Christmas” ideas among Christians.
Simply put, Chanuka is a real pissant holiday, and many Jews have no problem recognizing it as such. Many of us feel that it was overblown in a don’t-forget-about-me kind of way, which caught on like wildfire in our consumer driven society. In some way, and I’m not pointing fingers here, it seems as though some in American Jewry wanted some way to rain on the Christmas parade, and Chanuka was the perfect way to do it with a simple tweak of the tradition of giving gelt. Of course, it also facilitated the transcendence of Christmas out of Christianity and the formation of this whole 2 months Holiday Shopping Extravaganza to which we now subject ourselves.
Anyway, it is still a good excuse to give some presents or some money or some chocolate gelt, and at least eat sufganiot and latkes with the family. I got the Two Towers extended version, and that is never a bad thing. Even if I don’t know what the hell it is about, and I have a reasonable grasp of Jewish history.
And admit it. The Hebrew Hammer was hit or miss. For the Jews in the hizzle, the “Sheket bevakasha–” (“Hey!”) and the “Talk dirty to me…” (“I’ll get a good, steady job. We’ll buy a house in a nice neighborhood in Long Island. We’ll send the kids to private school.”) and a few other scenes were funny. The heavy reliance on Manishewetz, accent, and clingy mother jokes were tiresome. The highlights were the random (the Chinese Jewish guy?) and of course the Peeples brothers in the Kwanzaa Liberation Front.
[Comic Relief Drive By]I thought you wanted to discuss European Basketball? Oh…
But it does seem like Maccabi Tel-aviv always gets to play a Greek team in the EuroLeague just around Hannukah. If the game is in Tel-Aviv this leads to the resurection of long-unheard Hannukah songs in the stands. Problem is, these songs have usually been dying a slow death for a reason
But it is fun! (or was, when I used to go to Basketball games)
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