Dawn of the Century and Jewish Despair

The period from 1900 to 1914, which marks the last time Europe would know peace for almost 50 years, was tumultuous for the Jewish people.

From 1880 onward we see a continually mounting tide of anti-Semitism both in Eastern and Western Europe. This tide of anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Second World War and the destruction of European Jewry by Hitler, did not start with Hitler. It built upon 50 to 70 years of official government sanctioned anti-Semitism. In this new, racially-based anti-Semitism Jews had no place in European society. They were not to be tolerated under any conditions.

Jewish life was on the verge of destruction. The Dreyfus trial, the beginnings of the Zionist movement, vast emigration and the secularization of a large portion of the Jewish people all were motivated by the basic underlying force of anti-Semitism.

Kishinev Pogrom

There are two incidents that happened in Russia before the First World War that had a profound impact upon the Jewish people. The first was the infamous Kishinev pogrom of April 1903.

Kishinev is a town about 50 miles northwest of Odessa in Bessarabia. Around the turn of the century it had a Jewish population of about 25,000, which was large by Jewish standards. The Russian government had for many years pursued an official-unofficial policy of fomenting pogroms. It was unofficial in the sense that the government did not do any of the rampaging directly. It was official, however, in the sense that the police and the army would come into a town and announce that they were leaving for the next few days. That was a signal to the anti-Semites and thugs that they could destroy and plunder Jewish property and attack and murder Jews with impunity and without fear of consequences.

Sometimes the Russian authorities let it rage for a few hours and sometimes for a few days. Kishinev raged for three days. Golda Meir said that her first memory in life was the horrific pogrom of Kiev when her upstairs neighbor, a Jew, was nailed to the door of his apartment.

The Kishinev pogrom awakened in the world a reaction that Russia did not expect.

Compared to the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, the number of Jews killed (142) and wounded (1500) in the Kishinev pogrom – to say nothing of Jewish businesses destroyed (2000) — may not seem particularly large. But this was the beginning of the age of photographs. The Vietnam War was an excellent example of how the media affected policy. The fact that it was televised into every home eventually forced the political and diplomatic withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam. In a similar way, the photographs of the Kishinev massacre were telegraphed and subsequently published in all the newspapers of the world. They drove home in graphic detail the terrible brutality of the Russians and ignited a stinging international reaction against them.

The Czar claimed the government had nothing to do with it and that he was going to investigate it. Only fools believed him. In actuality, no one was ever punished for the Kishinev pogrom. No item of Jewish property was ever returned. No compensation was ever paid to any of the victims.

The President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, officially protested to the Russian government over its behavior. This was the first time the United States ever did something like that. The catalyst for his protest was the growing influence of Jews in American political and economic life. Now there was a large Jewish population in the state of New York and Roosevelt was aware of that. Though we can assume he was sincerely disgusted at Russian behavior, to some extent he responded to pressure of Jews in America.

Three Reactions

The Kishinev massacre convinced the Jews in Russia more than ever that there really was no future and no hope for them there. The only hope lay in three areas.

To the secular Jews, the only hope was to overthrow the Russian government. Kishinev made more Jews revolutionaries than anything else. It wasn’t so much that the Jews believed in revolution, but that they knew that under the Czar there was no hope and things would never change. In order for the Jewish situation to change someone had to get rid of the Czar, his autocratic government and break the power of the Russian Orthodox Church. The only ones prepared to do so were the left-wing socialists, communists, anarchists and revolutionaries. That was their platform.

Therefore, Jews became revolutionaries in great numbers during both of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. They were disproportionately represented. Though about 1% of the Russian population they were 15-20% of the revolutionaries. And in the leadership echelon they were even more disproportionately represented. There was a time that the higher echelon of the Bolshevik party in Russia was over one-third Jewish. That naturally brought about the other reaction that accused the Bolsheviks of being Jews and vice-versa.

The second reaction to Kishinev was the enormous strengthening of the Zionist movement. The movement may have originally been conceived, supported and led by Western European Jews but its membership came from Eastern European Jews. These secularized Jews looked at the Zionist movement with religious fervor. In effect, they took the belief and enthusiasm that Jews had in Judaism and transferred it to the cause of Zionism. They served it with the same dedication, tenacity and spirit. That is how they stood against all odds.

After Kishinev, the numbers behind the Zionist movement exploded. All over Eastern Europe Zionist cells grew. They even absorbed the whole Haskalah membership. A great deal of the Jewish socialist phenomenon was absorbed into the Zionist movement, though hardcore Jewish socialists like the Bund remained anti-Zionist to the bitter end, because they thought it was a diversion from the revolution that would overthrow the Czar and bring the rule of the proletariat to the entire world.

There was also now a strong push for religious Zionism, including great Chassidic rabbis. Most of the early religious Zionists, in fact, came from Chassidic backgrounds. Many great Chassidic rabbis, even if they did not pay it public support gave it private support.

The third response to Kishinev was the acceleration of the already accelerated pace of immigration of Jews to the United States. The situation in Russia was so desperate that parents sent children alone or husbands left their wives and family to travel to the New World in the hope of arranging for them to eventually come too.

The general, overall response to Kishinev can be summarized in one word: fatalism. Many Jews felt that nothing would help. All of the hopes of the 18^th and 19^th centuries for the betterment of the situation of the Jewish people were dashed. Therefore, a large element of the Jewish people became fatalistic — passive and willing to accept what was coming. They were not prepared to leave — for all sorts of reasons, including philosophic, religious, economic or physical. They were going to hang on no matter what and hope against hope that somehow they would ride out the storm.

Beilus

Compounding the fatalism was an event that occurred in 1911: the Beilus trial. It was not quite as famous as the Dreyfus trial, which began in 1894, but it was close. And in terms of infamy and the revelation of how deeply anti-Semitic the “civilized” world was it was comparable.

Before Passover in 1911 a non-Jewish child in Kiev disappeared. Unfortunately, children have been disappearing mysteriously since time immemorial. When non-Jewish children disappeared in the Middle Ages, especially before Passover in the spring, it often meant trouble for the Jews. They were blamed for kidnapping him in order to use his blood in a Passover ritual. By the 19^th century, most people – Jew and non-Jew — thought that this type of xenophobic behavior was a thing of the past. It could not happen in enlightened Europe.

But it did… in 1911 – and the Jewish scapegoat was a tailor named Mendel Beilus. A neighbor said that he saw him take the child. The authorities accused him of killing the child to use the blood to bake Passover matzah (unleavened bread).

In 1840, there had been a blood libel in Damascus. Syrian Jews were tortured and killed. There the Russian government protested to the Turks, telling them that it was a terrible thing how a civilized country could behave in such a way. Now they were the perpetrators.

The trial took place in 1913 amidst much publicity. The Russian government intended to use the trial as an example how they dealt with enemies, and reveal for all the power and truth of the Czar, the Romanoffs and the Russian autocratic system. But there was a great liberal element in Russia, and they rose to the defense of Beilus. Furthermore, the Dreyfus trial was still fresh in everyone’s mind and there was a cry throughout the world, creating a world climate of public opinion that put pressure on the Russian authorities. In the end, the court had to admit that it had no evidence to prove the guilt of Beilus and he was freed.

It was a terrible defeat for the Czarist government. But it was an even greater blow for the Jewish people. If such an anti-Semitic accusation could happen in 1913, then they were no better off than in the Middle Ages.

Pessimism

That is how the Jewish world looked immediately before the First World War. There was tremendous pessimism. In the pessimism, Jews gave up on many things. They gave up on their religion and they gave up on themselves.

The few idealists who remained were either very pious Jews, very secular revolutionaries or the Zionists. However, the great masses didn’t really have a commitment to any of these groups. They were drifting along without any direction. Their commitment to Judaism and the Jewish people was aptly described as a mile wide and an inch deep.

The coming storm that would be called the First World War would wash away those with shallow roots and change the Jewish world in Europe irrevocably.

The Zionist Movement

The Zionist movement was fueled by two things: the religious beliefs of the Jewish people regarding a return to their ancient homeland and the waves of anti-Semitism which swept the Jewish world in Europe at the beginning of the 20^th century.

The Zionist movement, however, was never monolithic. It had many factions, differing ideas and unique personalities. The greatness of Herzl was that he was able to hold his movement together in its early years in the face of such diversity.

The early Zionist congresses, from 1897 to 1903, formed the crucible of the movement. They were the places where these contentious battles were fought. These battles never really ended. A great deal of what was a battle back then is still a battle among the Jewish people today.

Two Views of the National Jewish Homeland

Herzl came from the Western world. He was an assimilated Jew. He saw the necessity of a Jewish homeland as a practical idea. Therefore, to him, it did not necessarily have to be a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Herzl never imagined that the wealthy Jews of Germany, France and England would move to Palestine. He never imagined that the deeply assimilated Jews, like himself, were going to move to Palestine. Rather, he saw the Jewish national homeland as the place where destitute and poverty-stricken Jews would be able to settle and rebuild their lives.

In this definition, the Jewish national homeland would be in effect a dumping ground for people who couldn’t make it in Europe.

Those who opposed Herzl initially called themselves the “Democratic Fraction.” These were primarily Jews of Eastern European descent. They did not see the Jewish national homeland in the light he saw it. They saw it as attracting the best and most talented of the Jewish people. It was where the Jewish people would realize their age-old ambition of being “a light unto the nations” of the world, as a realization of the prophetic dream of the return to Zion.

Those were two diametrically opposed views of what the Jewish state was supposed to be. In retrospect, those views not only still exist but have never really been reconciled and exist today.

Uganda

In 1903, the British foreign office, almost as a whim, offered Herzl the opportunity colonize the British East African colony of Uganda. If the Zionist movement would accept it England would support it and even provide some necessary financing.

England had an ulterior motive, of course. They were jockeying with Germany for control of Central Africa. Germany even had a claim to part of Uganda. By putting Jews there the British hoped that they would thereby solidify their claim.

Herzl thought it was a splendid idea. Destitute Jews across the globe could settle in Uganda, develop it agriculturally and industrially, have autonomy and be protected by the British army and navy. It would become a jewel in the crown of the British Empire at the same time it served his agenda for the Jewish people.

In perfect hindsight, his scheme was so naïve and far-fetched that it is hard to believe it came from a person as astute as Herzl.

Herzl was shocked at the vehemence of the opposition when he proposed the Uganda option at the Zionist Congress in 1903. He never truly comprehended the depth of the Jewish religion and what the Eastern European Jews were really about. He was astounded and even frightened at their reaction. Because of that he took it personally. He took it so personally that he got up in front of the Zionist Congress and announced that if Uganda was not adopted he would resign and leave the Zionist movement altogether.

His statement caused many of the delegates to panic and vote on behalf of the Uganda proposal, even though they otherwise opposed it. They felt that if Herzl left the movement the blow would be far greater than the movement could then stand. He was the glue that held it together. They were afraid to imagine what their movement would be without him.

Herzl would be dead within a year – and the Zionist movement would continue, even flourish. But at the Zionist Congress of 1903 they were afraid to risk it.

The Uganda proposal was adopted by a very narrow margin. The narrowness of the margin, and the fact that Herzl’s health immediately began to fail, guaranteed that it would never come to fruition. It was stillborn.

Chaim Weizman

The head of the opposition to Herzl was the Democratic Fraction and its leader was Chaim Weizman (1874-1952). He was born in Russia and educated in Pinsk and later Berlin. He came from a traditional Jewish home and had a traditional Jewish upbringing. All of his life he wavered between the ancient traditions and the modern world. He never synthesized them. There were times that he was very Jewish and there were times when he was not. At the end of his life he became an observant Jew again.

He is almost a tragic figure. Even though he is the person who guided the Zionist movement during 30 turbulent years from 1915 until 1945 and ended up being the first president of the State of Israel, he was in effect discarded at the end. And he felt that he was discarded.

Weizman was elected to the First Zionist Congress, but did not attend. From the Second Zionist Congress forward, however, he attended every one. He was an astute politician, great organizer, a fine speaker and a strong personality. He was the counterforce to Western, assimilated Zionism.

Here is an excerpt from his autobiography, called Trial And Error:

We were not revolutionaries. We were a struggling group of young academicians without power and without outside support. But we had a definite outlook on life. We did not like the note of eloquence and pseudo-worldliness, which characterized official Zionism. We did not like the dress suits and frock-coats and fashionable dresses of the West.

The formalism of the Zionist congresses made a painful impression upon me, especially after my visits to the wretched and oppressed Russian Jewish masses. Actually, it was all very modest, but it smacked to us of being artificial and extravagant. It did not speak to us of the democracy, simplicity and earnestness of the Jewish people. We were uncomfortable with it.

That captures the relationship between the Eastern European Jews to Herzl’s Western European Jews. In the official annals of Zionism it was down-played because it showed an enormous split on a fundamental level.

Culture Clashes

The second split in the Zionist movement had to do with “culture,” which was generally a euphemism for religion. Did the Zionist movement have anything to say about Jewish “culture”? In other words, was it supposed to be a practical movement to try to save Jews physically and not mix into Jewish spiritual life? That was Herzl’s idea. The first four Zionist congresses adopted resolutions that Zionism was neutral on all matters of Jewish culture. Zionism will never do anything against the Jewish religion – but it will never do anything for the Jewish religion either. Herzl was not interested in defining a “Jewish state.”

The Russian Jews objected to that for reasons stemming from the first difference. They were making a utopian state, one that was to be “a light unto the nations” and restoring the messianic era. It would be the model for all states. Therefore, it had to be infused with Jewish culture.

But, what was the definition of Jewish culture? The Haskalah and left-wing Socialist-Marxists had a definition completely opposite of religious Jews. To the former, religion was the “opiate of the masses.” The solution lay in the destruction of Jewish religion and rituals. To the masses of Jews, though, to have a Jewish state without Judaism was worthless.

In truth, those two definitions were never reconciled. Herzl was aware of that and wanted to avoid this war at all costs. He knew how deep the feelings ran. Therefore, he tried to have culture removed completely from the discussion.

Try though he did, it was an impossible task. From the fifth Zionist Congress onward, the Zionist movement set about to bring culture to the Jewish people.

Despite that, the issue was never solved. The story of the early Zionist movement was the story of trying to reach a consensus between elements as diverse as the piously religious and the atheist Marxist. It never happened.

Hebrew

When the early pioneers came there was a discussion as to what should be the official language. No one had given it any thought. Herzl originally proposed that it be French. Later, he agreed with the Kaiser that it should be German. In his mind, since it was going to be a modern state it had to have a modern language.

The Eastern European Zionists, on the other hand, produced a strong movement to make Yiddish the official language of the state. Of course, Yiddish would in effect have excluded a million Sephardic Jews. But that did not deter them.

The language, of course, ended up being Hebrew – and a new kind of Hebrew. That was due to the efforts of one man: Eliezer ben Yehudah (1858–1922). He wrote one of the finest dictionaries of Hebrew. Then he lobbied, traveled and persevered until he sold the idea to the masses that Hebrew should be revived and be the language of the new country.

Therefore, from about 1909 onward Hebrew became the de facto spoken language of Jewish pioneers.

The Creation of Religious Zionism

There were and still are three main viewpoints with religious Jewry regarding the Zionist movement. One sees in the accomplishments of Zionism the beginning of the process of redemption; it is the introduction, as it were, to the messianic age. Therefore, it not only has a purpose, but a positive purpose. Being part of that positive purpose is almost a commandment, according to this viewpoint.

A second group was represented by the ideas expressed by the fathers of the Mizrachi movement. It was founded in the early 1900s by Rabbi Jacob Reines, who had been a rabbi in Lithuania. A graduate of the prestigious Volozhin yeshiva, he was a renowned scholar, powerful speaker and great organizer. Though highly thought of, he was also controversial.

He purposely did not want to advance the cause of Zionism as having anything to do with the messianic era or the redemption of the Jewish people. He saw it only as a practical solution to a terrible problem, namely Jewish persecution to the point of destruction.

In short, it was Herzl’s idea of practical Zionism, but with an important twist. It was going to be a Jewish state as defined by Jewish tradition. He felt that this could be done, and that it would be done, only through cooperation with the Zionist movement, only by being part of the Zionist movement and pursuing its goals. For a long period of time the Mizrachi movement was popular, even among Eastern European religious Jews. Many Hassidic rabbis also supported it and were part of it.

The third opinion was that Zionism had to be opposed unequivocally because it was a secular movement that would secularize the Jewish people and diminish loyalty to Torah. It would substitute nationalism for religion. The method and depth of the opposition varied from group to group. But most of the great rabbinic scholars of the time opposed it.

This split within religious Jewry has changed little over time. The basic split still remains. But the battle lines were already drawn by 1906 or 1907. What kind of Jewish state? What kind of culture? What kind of religion? All of those questions were present then. All the problems that exist now can be found in the writings put to paper back then. Unfortunately, the answers then were not any clearer than they are now. It is a matter that is almost left for history to resolve.

Coming of the Great War

In the first decade of the 20^th century the world was poised for a war it would call “The Great War.”

One of those little realized facts is that the destruction of European Jewry did not begin with the Second World War. It began with the first one. The genocide of six million Jews, which occurred in the 1940s, was the terrible end of a tragedy which began with the First World War.

It is ironic that statements before the war foresaw a time of lasting peace, perpetual advancement and an unceasing march toward utopia. Europe believed it lived a charmed life. War was a thing of the past. The new technological advances would usher in a period of unequalled prosperity.

We have a hard time understanding their optimism. Even though we live in a world of much greater technological progress we are beset with doubts. After the bloodiest century in history, we know what type of uncertain world we live in. They did not. They felt that the world going to get better and better.

Even as words of optimism poured out of the mouths and pens of Europe’s intellectuals and pundits, however, the signs of a terrible storm rapidly approaching on the horizon were unmistakable.

The Russian Bear

The coming of the war was highlighted by a few events that shook Europe and had a profound effect on the Jews as well. The first was the Russo-Japanese war of 1905.

Russia was the sleeping giant of Europe. Churchill said, “Woe to the one that wakes the Russian bear.” However, Russia was backward militarily and owned an empire too vast to control. Russia’s military and industrial strength lay in the west, but it had claims in the east, specifically in Manchuria and ports on the Pacific Ocean. Japan, though, was a burgeoning power and also laid claim to some of the same land and ports.

When war came, the Russians were ill-prepared. They had to transport their army and its supplies army across an entire continent, and the only way to do so was one railway: the trans-Siberian railroad. It created a supply nightmare. On top of that, their equipment was poor and their generalship awful.

The Russian army sustained a terrible drubbing. Worse, the Japanese sank the entire Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Manchuria. In the peace that was negotiated Russia was forced to cede to Japan great chunks of territory, which threatened to eliminate them as a Pacific power.

When the Russian soldiers returned home they were extremely discouraged. They realized that they were led by poor generals, had bad equipment and that hundreds of thousands of their brethren in arms died needlessly. In their anger, they helped ignite a revolution against the Czar in 1905.

There had been threats of revolution in Russia ever since the Czar had been assassinated in 1881. Now the threats would become realized.

Jewish Revolutionaries

Jews were very heavily represented by all the revolutionary organizations. In the same party as Lenin was a young Jewish man by the name of Julius Cedarbaum, who was known through his revolutionary alias, Julius Martov. He came from southern Russia where the pogroms were very common and particularly brutal. Early in life he decided that he would devote himself to the revolutionary cause. Organizing revolutionary cells, he was caught, sent to forced labor in Siberia and eventually escaped.

Lenin would head the group that would become known as the Bolsheviks, meaning the “majority.” Martov would come to head the group known as Mensheviks, meaning “minority.” In reality, it was the opposite. Martov represented the majority of the communist party whereas Lenin represented the minority. Among their differences, Lenin was much more exclusive. He did not want to give any power to the people. Only an inner cadre of revolutionaries could run it, in his view. Martov and the Mensheviks were much more tolerant and liberal. For that reason they did not really stand much of a chance against the likes of Lenin.

In Lenin’s wing of the party was another revolutionary, a Jew by the name of Leib Bronstein, who became known to the world as Leon Trotsky. He also came to Marxism as a reaction to terrible anti-Semitism. Born into a traditional family, Trotsky was an example of a Jewish revolutionary originally educated in the yeshivas of Eastern Europe. Succumbing to the pressures of the time, they left the fold and became inflamed with Marxist zeal.

Trotsky was also arrested by the Russians, sent to Siberia and eventually escaped. He lived for a while in New York City, drinking tea on the Lower East Side and arguing the cause of Marxism. It all looked very harmless. However, when the Communist Revolution exploded in 1917 it was appropriately described by the title of a book by journalist John Reed, The Ten Days That Shook The World.

The revolution of 1905 was put down by the Czar and his secret police in six months. Hundreds of people were executed and thousands were exiled and tens of thousands were sent to Siberia. Other thousands escaped.

Defections from Judaism

This period saw a large defection of Jews from traditional views and ways of life. The as-of-yet untried Marxist theories inspired in people belief that the world was going to get better once capitalism and government were destroyed. That belief found a strong echo in the Jewish street.

With that belief came the bitter hatred of religion. Marx had said that religion was the opiate of the masses. Religion, in his opinion, made people docile with the belief that even if things were unbearable in this world there was a better world awaiting them. In Marx’s thinking, however, revolution could not come without things being unbearable.

For the first time in centuries the Jewish street was filled with groups who purposely set out to destroy the Jewish religion and who equated it with all of the evils and shortcomings of their society. The Jewish labor unions in Poland and Russia would purposely make their banquets on the night of Yom Kippur when Jews were fasting. They purposely desecrated the Sabbath and trampled other traditional Jewish values.

The inner turmoil and outer unrest caused by the failed revolution in 1905 resulted in a new wave of migration among Eastern European Jews. Hundreds of thousands came to the United States. Ironically, many of them became capitalists instead of communists. The one “ideal” they kept was hatred of the Jewish religion.

The unraveling of Jewish life in Russia benefited the Zionist movement. With everything disintegrating, the only alternative, the Zionists said, was to leave for Palestine and start over. In the nine years before the First World War, from 1905-1914, approximately 15,000 Jews came from Eastern Europe to Palestine. Approximately 3,000-4,000 of them were hard-core revolutionaries. Most of them went to the kibbutzim, which were then being formed, and introduced a communal life based in part upon idealism and in part upon a complete disregard and distain for their Jewish heritage.

Their viewpoints became the dominant ones in the pioneer communities. Therefore, it was they who would have the power as the fledgling Jewish state developed.

The Effects of Urbanization

For centuries, the Jewish people in Eastern Europe had basically been a rural people. Unlike the Jewish population in the United States, which is almost exclusively urban and suburban, the Jews in Eastern Europe had lived in small towns and farms.

Beginning in the middle 1800s, the process of urbanization and industrialization reached Russia and Poland and changed the face of society. For the first time, there were mass migrations to the cities. Included in those migrations were Jews.

Jewish migration also contributed to the undoing of centuries of religious life. City life and factory work proved more than many of them could bear. The great Jewish metropolises of Eastern Europe served as a rallying point for the de-Judaization of the Jews.

At the same time, urbanization increased anti-Semitism. As anti-Semitic as the Russians and Poles were when the Jews lived in the rural areas, they were more so when Jews came to the city. All of a sudden they encountered high concentrations of Jews. It was one thing to live in a little town and see maybe 20-40 Jewish families whose ancestors lived there for centuries. They were not a threat. But it was another thing to see hundreds and hundreds of Jews coming out of synagogue in Warsaw. It was overwhelming to the non-Jews. Jews became terribly visible all of a sudden. Warsaw alone had 300,000 Jews. Lvov had 100,000. That served to intensify the already existing anti-Semitic feelings among the local populace.

In short, the inner structure of Jewish life began to fall apart with the process of urbanization.

The Powder Box of Europe

In 1910, there was an outbreak of war in the Balkans, which had been controlled by Turkey, the Ottoman Empire. Called the “sick man of Europe,” the Ottoman Empire had long been disintegrating and could not control any of its holdings. That is how little countries like those in the Balkans – e.g. Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria — could break away.

Immediately upon attaining their independence, though, these Balkan countries celebrated by fighting among themselves. The Balkans is a composite of many ethnic groupings, none of whom like each other very much. It was called the “Powder Box of Europe.” The Europeans always worried that conflict there would ignite a larger conflict, which it did eventually. That was how the First World War began, as we will learn.

The Austrians were interested in replacing Turkey as the empire ruling the Balkans. They wielded enough influence to put out the fire before it spread into a wider conflagration. However, the leader of Serbia already said in 1912 when he was forced to sign the peace treaty, “This is only the first round.” His words would prove prophetic.

All this had a tremendous impact upon the Jews. In a situation of instability, Jews are the first to be effected because they tend to be viewed as the archetypal outsiders. Therefore, volatile political situations put Jews at particularly great risk. Even today, it is the political stability of the United States – as much as political freedom – which allows Jews to feel secure and function.

In the time immediately preceding the First World War almost 80% of the world Jewish population lived in the areas that would be affected by it. If the war had taken place in the trenches of France alone it would have had very little impact upon the Jewish people. However, a great war raged as well on the eastern front. Germany, Austria, Turkey fought bitter, pitched battles against Russia. And that is the part of the war that really ravaged Jewish communities and changed the face of Jewish history forever.

In short, as the world flung itself headlong toward “The Great War” the Jewish world was disintegrating. It was a time of great flux. The center was giving way. Nothing was stable any longer. When the shock of the war would hit this already destabilized society it would shatter it completely.

The Treaty of Versailles

As the warring armies of Europe neared complete exhaustion, President Woodrow Wilson, on January 1918, enunciated what was called the doctrine of the Fourteen Points. These were 14 statements upon which the world after the war should be constructed.

Britain and France, which had done most of the fighting and a great deal of the bleeding, resented Wilson’s proposal. They needed the United States — who had joined the Allies in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917 — realizing that they could not win the war without fresh American troops. But they resented that Wilson had the audacity to present a treaty without their consultation. They also resented many of the Fourteen Points themselves.

Abolition of Colonialism

For instance, one of the Fourteen Points had to do, in effect, with the abolition of colonialism. Even though, idealistically, it sounds marvelous to end all empires, realistically it was deeply resented by the colonial powers. One of the things that the war was about was the struggle for empire. England was not about to dismantle the British Empire; and neither was France about to give up its colonies.

What they understood by the abolition of colonies was the abolition of Germancolonies; that those colonies should become British and French (which is what happened). However, Wilson meant no colonial empires at all.

Despite opposition, the Fourteen Points struck a responsive chord among the masses in colonial lands worldwide. They suddenly had hopes that they were now going to get their independence. When the post-war world would prove unable and unwilling to grant its wishes revolutions broke out, the repercussions of which are still echoing today.

Another of the Fourteen Points, the one that the Jewish people were most interested in, was a reference to the fact that ethnic minorities would have a right to independence and self-government. The Jews read it as an endorsement of the Balfour Declaration, which promised a Jewish national home in Palestine. Although a less-than-resounding endorsement, this was one of the reasons that Jews were nevertheless strong backers of the Fourteen Points.

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

Wilson had publicized his Fourteen Points during the war, and the Germans would have been well advised to accept them. However, they did not. They were bringing their army from the eastern front to the western one to mount a last ditch final offensive. There were Germans who felt the war could still be won.

After the offensive failed in October 1918, the Kaiser abdicated and the German government that took over sent a message to President Woodrow Wilson that they accepted the Fourteen Points, and wanted an armistice based on them. They intentionally directed their message to Wilson, not the leadership in France and England. Wilson wrote back to Germany that he would propose the matter to the Allies. He did so, but they never answered Wilson; they felt it was an affront.

Finally, as the war turned very severely against the German army the Germans proposed — directly to the French — an armistice. When this armistice came to be on November 11, 1918 – “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” — written into the agreement was a vague statement that the Fourteen Points would govern the peace treaty that would later be signed. But it was a document subject to many interpretations and it certainly was not binding. However, the German army was in no condition to hold out and demand more than just this vague reference.

The hostilities ceased and a meeting was convened in January 1919 for the peace treaty. However, the Allies met by themselves without Germany present.

This peace conference took place in the magnificent French palace at Versailles, which is why it would be called the Versailles Treaty. The main negotiators of the treaty were Wilson, on behalf of the United States, Orlando on behalf of Italy, Clemenceau for France (also known as “the Little Tiger”), and David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister. Wilson would suffer a stroke while at Versailles, from which he would never recover.

His stroke had a fateful effect upon world history, because he was not able to campaign for his ideas or impose his will. In the end, the United States withdrew from the matter and entered a period of isolation from Europe. In the retrospect of history, the United States could have made the difference — economically, militarily and diplomatically – in restoring a stable Europe. Instead they left Europe to its own devices – which turned in World War Two after a break of two decades.

The British Mandate

The Treaty of Versailles established of the League of Nations, which was the precursor of the United Nations. Basically, it was meant to be a Parliament of all the sovereign nations of the world. They would get together and settle all matters by debate, arbitration, etc.

It was a marvelous idea, but it turned into a symbol of the futility of the world instead of a symbol of the hope of the world.

Despite that, the League of Nations played an important part in Jewish history in that it was given control over what were called “mandates.” There was a mandating committee whose purpose was to take away colonies from the defeated powers – Germany, Austria, the Ottoman Empire – and distribute them among the conquering powers – England, France, Belgium, Italy and to a certain extent the United States.

In order not to violate Wilson’s principle against colonialism it could not just be given away. Rather the League of Nations said that Palestine was not ready for independence. Therefore, it was given to England as a mandate, which was like a guardianship of a temporary nature. The goal was to eventually give the colony independence.

The most important thing, as far as the Jewish people were concerned, was that the mandate was given to England. If the mandate would have been given to France they could have completely ignored it. However, by giving it to England it raised the hopes of the Zionists and hopes of the Jewish people generally to soaring heights. There was never greater optimism among the Jewish people for the formation of the Jewish state by peaceful means as that existed from about 1920 to 1925.

Creating the Potential for WWII

Another major point about the Versailles Treaty was German reparations. A commission was established to set the amount to be paid, how it was going to be paid and who was going to get it.

The war had destroyed Germany’s economy. It had financed a war that was far beyond its ability to maintain. They had over $100 billion in debt by the end of the war independent of any reparations. The Versailles Treaty would force them to pay $22 billion, which by itself might have been manageable. However, when added to the $100 billion of debt incurred from war spending there was no way they could pay it.

The result was raging inflation in which the German currency and economy completed collapsed. In many respects that helped spell the doom of its post-war democratic government, the Weimar Republic, and allowed the likes of Hitler to fill the vacuum.

On top of the material suffering, Russia exported communism to Germany, and gained a very large and serious following. When we discuss the rise of the Nazis we will see that in the eyes of many the choice was between communism and Hitler. When Hitler came to power he killed or put into concentration camps all the communists he could. Those who survived either fled or turned into fascists. The same people who had marched for the red flag marched now for the swastika. The German needed to be subservient to something. In this case, they transferred their loyalties to a dictator rather than an idea.

Included in the reparations was that Germany had to relinquish great tracts of valuable territory. The fertile, soil-rich provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were given back to France. Germany had taken them away in 1871. Germany also had to give up the Saar Basin, which one of the largest coal producing areas in Europe. It was governed by the League of Nations, not France, but France got the coal.

Germany had to give up a large portion of Silesia to Poland, including what later came to be called the Polish Corridor, which was a strip of land that gave Poland access to the Baltic Sea. One of the promises Wilson had made was that an independent Poland would not be land-locked. The port they chose to give it was a German port, Danzig. Even though the majority of the corridor was Polish, Danzig was almost an entirely German city. Danzig was declared an international city – a city that belonged to no one and was governed by the League of Nations. In effect, this gave Poland access to its port. When Hitler came to power he made it a bone of contention.

The Versailles Treaty also stipulated that the eastern side of the Rhine up to a depth of 50 kilometers – the Rhineland – would be demilitarized. Germany could not maintain any forts, trenches, conduct military maneuvers or even station armed forces there. The demilitarization of the Rhineland was meant to guarantee that Germany could not mount another offensive against France. We will see that Hitler abrogated that for his cause as well.

A lot of Unhappy Customers

The Treaty of Versailles essentially made everyone angry and satisfied no one. The Germans were angry because they felt it was a deviation from the Fourteen Points and unfairly penalized them for the whole war. Even moderate Germans, such as those who represented the democratic Weimar Republic, resented it. It became a stigma. Those who signed it were marked for death – and many of them were assassinated by right-wing army officers. In post-war Germany, any political party had as the first and most important plank in its platform some statement that it would abrogate the Treaty of Versailles.

England and France felt the opposite. They thought it was too lenient; it let the Germans off too easily. Instead of collecting $200 billion they settled for $38 billion, which was reduced to $22 billion. They should have taken more territory away. They should have brought Germany to its knees.

Clemenceau was a war hero and ran for President of France. His election should have been like Eisenhower’s, who later ran for the president of the United States and easily won. But Clemenceau lost the election because the French considered the treaty too lenient.

The same was true in England, where Lloyd George fell from power eventually. People resented it. And it is understandable, because when you are talking about 20 million war casualties, where every family felt it, people were out for revenge.

In short, the Treaty of Versailles not only failed to solve the problems that caused the war but ensured their perpetuation, and even created new problems.

As for the Jews, the result of the war was a tremendous uprooting and destabilization of communities, but the part of the treaty that created a mandate for the British to govern Palestine raised hopes as they had never risen before. Rabbi Kook characterized the First World War by saying, “The result of the war is that God is going to give Palestine back to the Jews.”

The British Mandate

In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, the overall population in Palestine was about 800,000. Among those, close to 80,000 were Jewish. When the war ended in December 1918 there was a total population of only 640,000, from whom only about 66,000 were Jewish. Jewish losses were due to the war, famine, emigration and the fact that the Turks expelled many Jews.

Nevertheless, one encouraging sign for the Jews came out of the war: the Balfour Declaration. Along with the key line declaring British support of a Jewish national home in Palestine was a provision saying that it had to be consistent with the rights and privileges of the non-Jewish population. In effect, the Jews read the first part whereas the Arabs read the second part.

Sykes-Pico Agreement

England had a conference with France as early as 1916 over the division of the Middle East. This later became the Sykes–Picot Agreement. Under this pact, England and France agreed to divide the spoils of the Ottoman Empire. However, in 1916 it was not even clear who was going to win the war and control the Middle East, so this agreement was worded very vaguely. The only thing clearly agreed upon was that they would never let Turkey have back control.

In 1917, after the British under General Edmund Allenby successfully drove the Turks from Palestine, they amended the Sykes-Pico Agreement and floated an idea called the Pan-Syrian Plan. In this plan, Syria included not only what today is called Syria but Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. Under the Turks it was all one province, so to speak. It was one area administered by a one administrator centered in Damascus.

France and England agreed that Syria would belong to France and that Palestine would belong to England – but neither country defined “Syria” or “Palestine.” The French thought in terms of Pan-Syria, which included Palestine, whereas England thought in terms of a larger Palestine, which included Syria! They each intentionally kept vague the wording of the Sykes-Pico Agreement in order to out-maneuver each other diplomatically when the time was right.

After the war, there was a third version of Sykes-Pico. This one favored England because it was their army in the Middle East, not France’s. It was also the British who had convinced the Arabs to revolt against the Turks, with the help of the famous T. E. Lawrence – “Lawrence of Arabia.”

In this agreement, Palestine included not only what is today the State of Israel, including Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip, but also the entire country of Jordan. There was no country called Jordan. It was all called Palestine. England also took Iraq, even though in the earlier agreement it was part of Pan-Syria and thus earmarked for the French. The French did get Syria itself as well as Lebanon, which France broke off from Syria and created as a separate artificial country.

The Arabs sided with France, not England, because France had never made the Balfour Declaration. They were never perceived as pro-Zionist. As we discussed previously, the Treaty of Versailles created the League of Nations and gave England a mandate over greater Palestine. For reasons that are unknown and nothing short of miraculous, England included in its charter for the mandate the full text of the Balfour Declaration.

In effect, the world was giving England control over Palestine subject to the Balfour Declaration. England could have repudiated it in 1919 or 1920. There was no reason for it to be there. But once it was there it became a matter of international law. Indeed, England could have gone back any time it wanted to and emended its charter – but it never did. Therefore, the Jews had an internationally recognized, legal right to strive for a homeland in Palestine.

Conor Cruise O’Brien, a Roman Catholic, wrote in his The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism:

If a Zionist of the pious sort were to tell me that the true explanation of the phenomenon of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate was that God had decided that it was time for His people to come home I could no doubt express polite skepticism. But if the same pious Zionist were then to ask me whether I have any other plausible explanation in terms of Britain’s material interests for the British government’s reinforcement of the Balfour Declaration in the circumstances of the early 1920s I should have to say that I cannot find any such explanation.

British Military Rule

From 1918 to 1920, Palestine was governed by the British military, not by any civilian authority. To put it mildly, the British army was anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic. As the general of the army said, “I want to have nothing to do with Lloyd George, Balfour and their long-nosed friends.”

The leading player in this drama was a British colonel by the name of Ronald Storrs. He was a tall, elegant officer with a blond moustache turned up at the sides who was appointed Military Governor of Jerusalem from 1918 to 1926. One of his famous statements was, “Zionism has a metallic clang to it. It bangs. It bangs. It bangs.” He was referring to the brusque nature of Eastern European Jews, coming and banging on his table and making demands. He preferred the court Arab, who he thought was courteous, enjoyed a good cup of tea and spoke around the subject.

The British government under Colonel Storrs took two steps that undid the Balfour Declaration. First, they banned Jewish immigration to the country. From 1918 to 1920 no new Jews were allowed in. Second, they prohibited the transfer of land. No property could be exchanged or sold. These in effect closed down the entire Zionist operation. Without Jews and without land there could be no Jewish national home. The British did this under the authority of martial law for the public good, they said. And the Jews were powerless to do anything about it.

Arab Riots of 1920

By 1920, the Arabs saw a chance to completely end the Jewish presence in Palestine and with the incitement of the notorious anti-Semite Haj Amin el-Husseini they rioted in Jaffa and Jerusalem. Over 100 Jews were killed and almost 150 wounded.

Both Jews and Arabs believed that the military administration was sympathetic to the riots. Ronald Storrs was cheered by Arab supporters demonstrating in Jerusalem, who presented him with a declaration that included the following words: “Palestine, where the Messiah was born and crucified, and which is considered a fatherland by all the world, refuses to be a national home for the people who killed the Messiah, and have done evil unto the whole world. Which people among whom the Jews have dwelled have not witnessed massacres and shedding of blood?”

During the riots, Vladimir Jabotinsky attempted to come to the aid of the Jews and was arrested by the British. When it was over it was obvious that most of the victims of Arab violence were old men, women and children. Here is a conversation that went on between Menachem Ussishkin, head of the Zionist movement in Palestine then, and Colonel Storrs when the latter came to the former to expression the British official letter of sympathy for the Jews who were killed.

“I have come to express my grief,” Storrs said, “over the catastrophe that befell us.”

“Which catastrophe?” Ussishkin replied.

“I am referring,” Storrs said, “to the saddening events which took place here the last few days.”

Ussishkin: “Is Your Honor referring to the pogrom?”

Storrs: “It was not a pogrom. It is impossible to call these riots a pogrom.”

Ussishkin: “You, Colonel, are an expert in administrative matters. I am an expert in pogroms. I can promise you that there is no difference between the Jerusalem pogrom and the Kishinev pogrom. The organizers of the local pogrom did not show any originality. They followed step by step the ways of the perpetrators of the Russian pogrom. Czar Nicholas also did not interfere with the pogrom. He has also oppressed us. Yet, does Your Honor see what has befallen him? In his place sits Trotsky. All our enemies in the world and in the Land of Israel will also meet such an end.”

Sir Herbert Samuel

In 1920, Sir Herbert Samuel was appointed as the first British High Commissioner of Palestine. He represented civil government, not military government. He was a Jew who had risen to prominence in the Liberal Party in Britain. Upon his arrival to Palestine in June 30, 1920, he said, “I am the first Jewish leader of Palestine since Hyrcanus II, the last Maccabee leader in 40 BCE.” To a certain extent that was true.

When he came he attempted to restore the promises of the Balfour Declaration. Immigration to Palestine was reopened, and from 1920 to 1923 there occurred what is referred to as the Third Aliyah. During that period of time the Jewish population of the country more than doubled. He also allowed the transfer of land to occur, and during the same time period a great deal of Arab land was purchased. New Jewish settlements were made almost on a daily basis. In general, he attempted to conduct himself according to the principles of the Balfour Declaration.

He tried to mollify the Arabs as well. Haj Amin el-Husseini had been arrested by the British for his part in the riots. Sir Herbert Samuel pardoned him. To balance things, he also freed Jabotinsky as well.

He tried to reconcile the Jews and Arabs into one group and proposed that the Jews and Arabs together have a democratic self-government council, which would run the domestic affairs of the country. But the Arabs said that they would not sit on any council with any Jews. As hard as Sir Herbert tried to bring the Arabs into the idea he was unable to do so.

Therefore, Samuel had to withdraw his plan. When he did so, he set up independent agencies. There was a Jewish Agency for Jewish affairs and a Muslim Agency that would run Arab affairs. However, the Arabs never got together to have the agency. So, in effect, while the Jewish Agency became the shadow government or the government-in-training for the Jewish state the British ran the Arab affairs.

This British identification with the Arab cause was more than symbolic. As Conor Cruise O’Brien wrote:

A British historian has said that the Balfour Declaration was a crown piece of insincerity coupled with insanity. In terms of Western diplomacy it was the most cynical of documents. And the British military authorities in Palestine consciously intended to undo the declaration. As Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote to Weitzman, “The official approach of the British is to apologize to the Arabs for a slip of the tongue by Mr. Balfour.” However, the Balfour Declaration was written into the British Mandate for Palestine. And that is the key point to remember.

It is nothing short of miraculous that the British kept the Balfour Declaration, at least for the first two decades after its declaration (until they issued the White Paper in 1939). Perhaps the miracle was summed up nowhere more eloquently than in the words of Arthur Curzon, a bitter anti-Semite, who replaced Lord Balfour a British foreign secretary in late 1919. When the League of Nations approved the Mandate with the Balfour Declaration, Curzon quoted a line from a famous French poet, “The fool God of the Jews has beaten you too.”

The Miracle of Chanukah

Chanukah was a miraculous military victory, but a tiny cruse of oil proved more miraculous and enduring in the memory of the Jewish people.

In the wake of Alexander’s appearance in and departure from Jerusalem, relations between Jews and Greeks were so good that an exchange of cultures took place. Each influenced the other. For the Jewish minority, however, what began as a small undertow of assimilation — such as giving children Greek names and speaking the Greek language — became a surprisingly powerful, high-speed rip current threatening to drag the caught-off-guard Jews out to the sea of complete assimilation.

Jews who embraced Greek culture at the expense of Judaism became known asMisyavnim, or Hellenists. Estimates are that a third or more of the Jewish population was Hellenist, including those who reversed their circumcision, ate pork, bowed to idols and even became self-hating enough to side with the enemies of Israel. Hellenism threatened to annihilate the Jewish world through assimilation in ways tyrants tried but could not do by force.

Had the situation continued as it was, the Greeks would perhaps have won the battle by default. However, they overstepped themselves.

Here Come the Greeks

At the beginning of the year 190 BCE, the situation between the two great post-Alexandrian empires, the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic, deteriorated badly. The Seleucids mounted an invasion that took their army through the Land of Israel, which was sandwiched in-between.

Whenever a foreign army comes into a country it changes the view of the populace. Instead of an attractive culture, the Greeks were now an occupying enemy. Instead of something to be imitated, now they became something to be resisted.

The Jewish people are very stubborn. The same person who is so stubborn that he will not observe the Torah in freedom will observe it with passion if forbidden from observing it. He becomes stubborn the other way.

A good case could be made that if the Communists in Russia would have left the Jews alone they would have completely assimilated. However, once told that they could not be Jewish a certain percentage of Jews decided to be Jewish at great risk. That happened with the Greeks as well.

Progressively More Intolerable Laws

The Greek army exerted a very heavy hand against the Jews. First, they forced Jews to finance their war through collection of taxes. Then they forced them to quarter their soldiers in Jewish homes. Finally, the Greeks were determined to crush the Jewish religion.

First, they took the statue of Zeus and mounted it in the courtyard of the Temple. Next, the Greeks banned the observance of the Sabbath on the pain of death. Then, the Talmud (Kesubos 3b) records, there was a period of time which lasted a number of decades when the Greek officer in town had the right to “live” with a woman on her wedding night before her husband-to-be.

The Greeks also banned circumcision. Whoever circumcised his child was put to death; both child and father were killed. Then the Greeks demanded that altars to the Greek idols be established and that sacrifices be offered on a regular basis in every Jewish town. Finally, the Jewish educational system was entirely interrupted.

The Jews Rebel

About the year 166 BCE, a group finally stood up to the Greeks: Matisyahu (Mattathias) and his family, known as the Hasmoneans. We do not know much about them except that they were of noble descent from the priestly class (Kohanim), including those who had served as High Priests.

They lived in a small town called Modin, which was about 12 miles northwest from Jerusalem. (The town exists today, and is about 20 miles west of modern Jerusalem.) One day, a Greek contingent marched in, set up an altar, gathered all the Jews and forced them to sacrifice a pig to Zeus.

They then asked for a Jewish volunteer to perform the sacrifice. One stepped forward. As he approached the altar Matisyahu stabbed him to death.

Chaos broke out. The Greek army attempted to subdue the crowd, but the Jews were armed and slaughtered the entire Greek patrol. There was no turning back now.

The Maccabees

Matisyahu had five sons, all of whom were people of great organizational leadership as well as pious, committed Jews: Johanan (Yochanan), Simon (Shimon), Jonathan (Yonason), Judah (Yehudah) and Eleazar.

They ran to the caves and organized an army – not to fight an open war, but a guerilla war. Originally they organized of force of about 3,000 men. Eventually it grew to 6,000 and never reached more than 12,000 men.

The General of the Army was the great Judah, known to the world as Judah the Maccabee (or Judas Maccabaeus as he was called in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost). “Maccabaeus” is the Greek word for hammer, but the Jews took it, as Jews are wont to do, and made it Jewish by declaring that “Maccabee” stood for the first four letters in Exodus 15:11, meaning, “Who is like You, God?” — which was said by Moses and the people after the miraculous drowning of the Egyptians at the Sea of Reeds.

An enormous Syrian-Greek army, numbering almost 50,000 men, marched into Judea. Judah the Maccabee marshaled his forces and with guile and courage outmaneuvered the far larger Greek army, forced it to divide and then destroyed its various components, killing many thousands and forcing the survivors to flee north to Syria.

It took many years, but their hit-and-run tactics wore down three great Greek armies. However, the Jews paid a very heavy price in terms of blood. Matisyahu died in the early going. Judah Maccabee was killed in the third great battle. Eleazar died while attacking an elephant. Johanan and Jonathan were killed as well. The only Maccabee brother who survived was Simon.

The Miracle

The last famous battle was for the fortress of Antonius, which guarded the Temple. When Antonius fell, the Jews came back to the Temple. They shattered the statue of Zeus and cleaned the Temple to the extent that they could. Any priests who worked for the Greeks were sent away or executed.

They only found one small flask of uncontaminated oil with the seal of the High Priest. By Torah law, the flame of the Menorah (Candelabrum) in the Temple could only be lit with specially prepared pure olive oil. The amount of oil remaining in the one uncontaminated flask was only enough to burn for one day, and it would take eight days to produce a new batch of pure oil.

What could they do?

They lit it — and it miraculously burned for eight days. That is why Chanukah lasts eight nights (the festival was established a year later by the Rabbis).

What is Chanukah?

The Talmud does not say much about Chanukah. There are perhaps forty lines spread out in different volumes, whereas almost all the other holidays have an entire Talmudic volume about them. In addition, the few words the Talmud has to say aboutChanukah are cryptic. Perhaps that is why Chanukah has been subject to reinterpretation, as it has been in our time. People make whatever they want to make out of it. However, that is a mistake, a tragedy.

In the Western world, it has the misfortune of falling out in December. Therefore, in the homes of many Jewish people it has sadly became the Jewish version of the December holidays, a mixture of commercialism and non-Jewish traditions and ideas.

What is Chanukah?

What the Talmud does say is that the important thing is to “advertise the miracle.” People have to recognize that a miracle took place. It is vital to keep the wonder in Chanukah. That is why the rabbis gave more emphasis to the miracle of the lights than the military victory.

Wars come and go. Even the glow of miraculous victory can fade. Young people today do not think that Israel’s War for Independence in 1948 was such a miracle. In 1967, Jews expected a second Holocaust. Now people brush the miraculous Six Day War off as nothing special.

History provides numerous examples of outnumbered forces defeating a superpower using guerilla tactics. Was the Maccabean victory so miraculous? That was the question Jews at the time must have asked themselves.

However, when the small flask of pure oil that could only last one day lasted eight days it proved that there was a miracle that happened there. The little flask of oil shed light on the big military campaign. “Not by the army, not by power, but through My Spirit, says God” (Zechariah 4:6). Chanukah is about the little light that sheds a great light.

There is an indefinable, spiritual, electric charge that binds the generations together that cannot be found in any book. It can only be had when parents and grandparents do things like sitting together with their children around the Chanukah lights celebrating, discussing and advertising the miracle; experientially getting in touch with the wonder of the past, the wonder of the present, the wonder of life.

What Ever Happened to the Hellenists?

Chanukah is a very popular, emotional and beautiful holiday. However, the necessity for Chanukah begins with the story of the invasion of Greek culture and the weakness of the Jews in responding to it. It originates from the growth of an enormous sect of Hellenists within the Jews, who even supported the Greeks during the war.

What happened to the Hellenists? Their influence all but collapsed in the wake of the defeat. They would never return again as Hellenists, because the war brought out their true colors as traitors and they lost whatever appeal they could have had to the Jewish people.

Most of them retreated to the city of Caesarea, which remained a Greek city (and later would become a Roman city). They were just not part of the Jewish people any longer.

Their demise punctuated the fact that more than a military victory, the miracle of the oil signified that Chanukah was a victory of the spirit of the Jewish people, a victory that granted them the right to observe the Torah. That is why its memory and the people who observe it have endured.