Badass Judah Maccabee
The story of Hanukkah in plain English. If Judah Maccabee were alive today, he’d kill all of the Moslems in Israel and tear down that Mosque and rebuild the Temple. (Not an exaggeration, that’s what he did to the Greeks, and if he didn’t feel guilty about treating Greeks like that, I don’t see why he’d shed tears over Moslems.)
Jews who celebrate Hanukkah, but then are wussy liberals when it comes to how Israel treats the Palestinians, are a bunch of self-hating hypocrites.
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An example of how badass he was (from 2 Maccabees 12):
26 Next, Judas attacked the city of Karnaim and the temple of the goddess Atargatis there, killing 25,000 people and completely destroying both the city and the temple. Then he attacked the fortified city of Ephron where Lysias and people of all nationalities were living. Strong young men took up their positions in front of the walls and fought bravely, while inside the city were stored large quantities of military supplies and weapons. But the Jews prayed for help to the Lord, who crushes the power of his enemies. So they captured the city and killed about 25,000 people.
The books of the Maccabees are mostly about a lot of gentiles being killed by Jews.
Lion of the Blogosphere 
Yeah, it’s even better than you’re making out. He essentially defied the leftist-SWPL orthodoxy of his day, who were every bit the traitors that our current elite are – and won. I LOVE telling people the real story of Hannukah.
Samson J.
December 22, 2014 at 8:44 AM
Every Jewish holiday: Our enemies are dead, let’s eat!
Logan Circle Dreaming
December 22, 2014 at 9:37 AM
I don’t think Maccabees is part of the official Jewish scripture. Luther left it out either because it wasn’t, or because it talks about praying for the dead.
thrasymachus33308
December 22, 2014 at 11:14 AM
Lion, I have to say I like your Hanukkah posts. They really reinforce you aren’t one of those self hating Jews that get the face time in the media.
everybodyhatesscott
December 22, 2014 at 11:27 AM
I think it has been well established that he is a prole-hating Jew, particularly if the prole is a gentile.
Joe Walker
December 22, 2014 at 9:51 PM
Jews who celebrate Hanukkah, but then are wussy liberals when it comes to how Israel treats the Palestinians, are a bunch of self-hating hypocrites.
Worse, most of them refuse to be HBD-aware.
JS
December 22, 2014 at 2:05 PM
He made no friends. He was like Jewish Napoleon without Josephine. (No mention is made about his marriage or children, anywhere).
If he didn’t die in battle his regime would have collapsed anyways since Rome was getting too powerful by that point of time and he would have none of that.
His brother Simon made deals with Rome and Parthia, and by the time of Simon’s son John (which itself is a Greek form of Jochanaan to begin with), he had a Greek name, Hyrcanus.
Eventually the kingdom fell into the hands of a woman of unknown origin, with the totally un-Hebrew name of Salome Alexandra, who was ironically the most capable of all rulers in that sorry dynasty which collapsed shortly after her death via infighting.
In retrospect, the whole Maccabee show only leaves people saying, ‘what was the whole thing about?’
toos is god
December 22, 2014 at 2:11 PM
The Israelis actually Hebrew-fied “Salome” to “Shlomotzion”, a name nobody used prior to 1948.
toos is god
December 22, 2014 at 2:18 PM
Thrasymachus is right. 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Eclesiasticus and Baruch are not part of the Jewish Bible. They are included in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which is used (with small differences) by Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. These books were excluded by the Rabbis sometime after the split with the Christian Jews, and Luther and other Prostetants accepted the Rabbis’ judgement.
bob sykes
December 22, 2014 at 2:13 PM
Septuagint precedes the Maccabean rebellion by 100 years.
Garr
December 24, 2014 at 5:09 PM
The books of the Maccabees are mostly about a lot of gentiles being killed by Jews.’.
Maybe, but it was a Jewish civil war as well with the Maccables killing the Jewish Hellenists, lots of them. Lion, are you with us here?
Yakov
December 22, 2014 at 2:39 PM
Yes, the story begins with Judah/Judas Maccabee’s father killing a Jew who capitulated to the Greeks.
Lion of the Blogosphere
December 22, 2014 at 3:08 PM
My question was would you fight with us against the Jewish Hellenists? They could be nice people, you know.
Yakov
December 22, 2014 at 4:34 PM
The Hellenists were surely less prole than the Maccabees, but no one lights a Menorah for the Hellenists.
Lion of the Blogosphere
December 22, 2014 at 5:13 PM
My question was would you fight with us against the Jewish Hellenists?
Not a chance in hell. Hellenism was the mark of eliteness, and we all know Lion reveres status above all moral and religious principles. The Romans themselves considered Greek superior to Latin.
In an environment such as that Lion would be a Hellenistic Jew all the way until he was finally captured and executed by Maccabees for turning away from the prole Judaism of his parents for the sake of fame, wealth, fine dining, and power among ancient elites. His execution would be the subject of rabbinical debate for thousands of years.
The Undiscovered Jew
December 22, 2014 at 6:57 PM
Undiscovered Jew, but Lion says he would. Rationaly, what’s elitist about worshiping idols, running naked around in a gym, and filating your philosophy teacher? An Australian aboriginy with an IQ of 60 does that. Oh, and Greek feasts where they would eat, vomit to be able to eat more and then vomit again? High culture?
Yakov
December 22, 2014 at 10:55 PM
and what would he have thought of late rabbinic/Pharisaic Judaism? little is my guess.
World Moustache Champion
December 23, 2014 at 3:02 AM
Undiscovered Jew, but Lion says he would.
Convenient to say that today, today when Hellenism isn’t elite. But transport him back in time and every guido rabbi in Jerusalem would have dispatched bounty hunters to hunt Lion down for blasphemy.
Rationaly, what’s elitist about worshiping idols, running naked around in a gym, and filating your philosophy teacher? An Australian aboriginy with an IQ of 60 does that. Oh, and Greek feasts where they would eat, vomit to be able to eat more and then vomit again? High culture?
I can’t explain Greek thinking about homosexuality. But weigh it against Greek sculpture, literature, philosophy, mathematics (Archimedes developed an early form of calculus two thousand years before Newton and Leibniz were born), and the founding of Western civilization, and it’s clear Lion would ditch Judaism for Hellenism.
The Undiscovered Jew
December 23, 2014 at 7:29 PM
and what would he have thought of late rabbinic/Pharisaic Judaism?
What is Greek for ‘Prole’?
The Undiscovered Jew
December 23, 2014 at 7:29 PM
im not jewish but i always thought the rugrats chanukah special about the maccabees was awesome
jjbees
December 22, 2014 at 3:58 PM
It makes you think about life when you have more in common with other groups of people than your own kind.
I feel more close to conservative jewish people like Lion than I do swpl gentiles, and Lion obviously has no love for the jewish swpl equivalents. self flagellation is pathetic
jjbees
December 22, 2014 at 4:04 PM
Again, that tale is actually a transformation tale of orthodox Jews turning into Reform Jews and later abandoning Judaism altogether.
Mattathias – Orthodox Jew
Judas – Ultra-martial Orthodox Jew
Simon – Orthodox but a bit more open minded
John Hyrcanus – Reform Jew
Salome Alexandra – Possibly a gentile (although some sources try to tie her with Simon ben Shetach, a notable rabbi at that time).
Salome’s children – not Jewish at all, fully Hellenized /Romanized. In other words, ‘fully assimilated’.
toos is god
December 22, 2014 at 4:10 PM
The “miracle of oil” part of the story that gets all the focus today wasn’t mentioned at all until the Talmud was codified some 500+ years after the events recorded in the apocrypha. The Talmudists might have pulled it out of their collective tuchus to downplay all the internecine ugliness..
Exurban Curmudgeon
December 22, 2014 at 7:00 PM
Lots of SWPL Jews today have no idea what the holiday is about. A tweet that exemplifies that: https://twitter.com/msuster/status/544995116021071875
Dave Pinsen
December 22, 2014 at 9:07 PM
But are those books accurate or are they just Jewish revenge porn like that movie “Inglourious Basterds?”
Joe Walker
December 22, 2014 at 9:47 PM
I like the parts where these old yehudis tolchock each other and then drink their Hebrew vino, and get onto the bed with their wives’ handmaidens
Alex DeLarge
December 23, 2014 at 6:39 PM
Toos, the tale is one of Jews saving their religion and preserving their political independence (with all its limitations) for over 200 hundreds years. Than, just like today, many Jews used two names: one Jewish and one Greek. I, for example, use both Yakov and Jack, my daughter uses Yehudis and Judy. It’s true that the Maccabee family itself fell under hellenistic influences, but this is the story of a nation not a of a family. And the nation is here today lighting the menorah.
The miracle of oil being completely unnecessary from the perspective of the religious law, signifies, among other things, Divine approval of the rebellion, the war and the rededication of the Temple and the sacrificial service. If you dought it’s occurrence, you can view it as a literary device used to teach a lesson in the style of the times. The rabbits of the Talmud made no effort to conceal that the main conflict was a civil war with the hellenized Jews.
Yakov
December 22, 2014 at 10:20 PM