A Jewish Joke:
Q: Who likes flowers but not religious oppression?
A: Judah Macca-bee
The Story of Chanukah “on one foot”:
Chanukah is a Jewish holiday that comes in the winter. While the basic version of Chanukah is well-known by many, there are more twists and turns than is commonly known.
The Prequel
Here’s the short version of what happens before the Chanukah story takes place:
1. Alexander the Great and the Greeks conquer the Persian Empire.
2. After Alexander dies, his generals split up Alexander’s territory. Judea ends up belonging to Ptolemy along with Egypt.
3. Eventually the Seleucids conquer Judea and attach it to Syria.
4. Antiochus IV outlaws Judaism in order to forcibly Hellenize Judea.
For the longer version of the prequel, see here: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/529209?lang=bi
The Short Version of the Chanukah Story
1. The Syrian-Greeks try to bring their religion to the village of Modi’in. Mattathias stops this.
2. Mattathias and his sons flee to the hills. Other Jews join them.
3. Judah Maccabee, one of Mattathias’ sons, takes over and uses guerrilla warfare to drive the Syrian-Greeks away.
4. The Jews reclaim the Second Temple and clean it up (from the pigs, from the statues of Zeus, and from the general mess).
The end
The Long Version
The Beginning of the Rebellion
- In 167 BCE, Syrian-Greek troops under Apelles attempted to impose Greek idolatry on the village of Modi’in (about 20 miles northwest of Jerusalem). They ordered Mattathias, the village priest to sacrifice a pig on an altar. He didn’t, and somebody else came forward, hoping for a reward. Mattathias killed the volunteer and Apelles, and his sons rallied the villagers in killing the rest of the troops.
- Then they fled to the Gophna Hills, northwest of today’s Ramallah. These hills were out of the way of the Syrian-Greeks on the coastal plain and were easier to defend.
- Many Jews, especially the Hasidim ("the Pious Ones", not the modern Hasidim) joined them. They recognized that the Syrian-Greeks would attack on Shabbat and that they needed to be willing to defend themselves on Shabbat in order to stay alive.
- At this point there were maybe 200 Jews in the rebellion, including about 50 “military-aged men”. They didn’t have military training.
- During this year, they organized and trained in guerrilla warfare, and made connections with the surrounding villages, telling more people about their rebellion. This helped with intelligence-gathering. They defended themselves as necessary but didn’t attack.
- By the end of the first year, Mattathias died (166 BCE) and military leadership passed to Judah (not the oldest, but the best general). Judah acquired the nickname “the Maccabee”, possibly as an acronym for the Hebrew rallying cry “Mi Chamocha Ba’eilim Adoshem”, “Who is like You, G-d, among all that is worshipped?”, or possibly because he struck the Syrian-Greeks like a hammer.
- Judah’s forces had farm implements and weapons that they could make like the mace and slingshot. The Seleucids “were an up-to-date Greek army; well-trained, well-organized, and tried in battle. Their ranks were composed of heavy and light infantry, heavy and light cavalry, chariots, elephant units and ‘artillery’ units operating ballistas (engines for hurling huge stones), not to mention the various service units. Their weapons included swords, javelins, spears, bows, slings, ballistas, and battering-rams” (Battles of the Bible, 268).
- As more Jews joined and supply / intelligence lines were increased, they attacked larger groups of Syrian-Greeks soldiers on patrol using guerilla warfare (there were still only several hundred men fighting). Although they were outnumbered, because they were fighting on their home territory and for the right to practice their religion they managed to survive the encounters. This led to more military supplies captured, more Jews willing to outwardly show their support, and fewer Syrian-Greek patrols controlling the countryside.
- Even though there was not yet major fighting, most of Judea was under (non-Hellenized) Jewish control except for the large towns and walled cities.
This song is called “Mattathias Bold” and it is a great way of remembering Mattathias’ sons’ names. For a version with nice harmonies, see https://youtu.be/Y9-V0CCtbc8?si=jL0kRiIa4NDQjam1. Their Hebrew names were: Elazar, Yonatan, Shimon, Yochanan, and Yehudah (Judah).
A musical version of the story of Mattathias, sung by the Budin family in 2012.
The Battles of Lebonah and Beth-Horon
- Judah's forces worked on isolating Jerusalem so they could reclaim the Temple.
- The Hellenized Jews of Jerusalem asked the Seleucid governor in Samaria, Apollonius, to crush Judah's forces.
- Apollonius took a force of 2,000 Macedonian settlers and took the ridge route from Samaria toward Jerusalem.
- Judah knew that the Syrian-Greeks were trained to fight on open ground. Therefore, around Nahal el-Haramiah (also known as Lebonah), Judah chose to attack when the route the Seleucids was taking went through a ravine for over a mile.
- Judah divided his forces into four groups. The first attacked the troops at the front (southern) end of the ravine, keeping them from escaping. The rest of the Seleucids didn’t know about this, so they kept marching into the ravine. The second group then attacked down from the eastern side of the ravine. While the Seleucids were dealing with that (ineffectively, given their heavy weapons), the third group attacked down from the western side of the ravine. At this point, Apollonius was killed by fire from both sides of the ravine. Finally, when all the Seleucids were in the ravine, Judah led the fourth group to seal off the northern end of the ravine.
- As a result of this fight, that Seleucid army was destroyed and the Jews picked up a large amount of military equipment. Judah used Apollonius’s sword thereafter.
- Around Lebonah, Judah's forces attacked in an ambush. Apollonius was killed and Judah used the general's sword as his own thereafter. The loyalists fled, leaving more weapons for the guerillas.
- There were three more unsuccessful attempts by the Syrians to connect with Jerusalem.
- The fourth time, Seron, the military commander of Coele-Syria (a region of Syria), took his regular army through the coastal plain and then at Jaffa headed toward Jerusalem via the pass in the hills at Beth-Horon (not the main road). His goal was to connect with the garrison in Jerusalem and then fan out and crush the rebellion in the countryside. The route he took toward Jerusalem would be used again in 1917 by the British 90th Division led by General Allenby, and again in 1967 by the Israeli Defense Forces liberating Jerusalem.
- Seron had 4,000 troops and Judah had 1,000. This was intimidating to the Jews, and Judah had to remind them that they were fighting for their homes, families, and right to worship G-d.
- Just like Seron avoided Apollonius’s mistake of a route, he also avoided the mistake of being in the middle and not directing the fight from the beginning. This made Judah’s goal of eliminating the commander even easier.
- The Seleucids went into the ravine of the Beth-Horon pass. It wasn’t a long enough ravine to trap the entire army, but nonetheless Judah was able to use the technique of sealing one end and charging the enemy with one third of his forces.
- With the front of the Seleucids taken by surprise, and the rest continuing to push forward into the ravine, the other two thirds of Judah’s forces attacks with bows and slings from the top of each side of the ravine. This caused more confusion, and then they rushed down the sides with swords drawn.
- The element of surprise worked for Judah, and the Syrians ran away, with Seron and 800 Syrians dead.
- This victory enhanced Judah’s status and more people flocked to his forces, giving him 6,00 men to fight with.
From Battles of the Bible, by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon
The Battle of Emmaus
- About the time that Antiochus IV, the Seleucid emperor, realized that he had a rebellion on his hands (165 BCE), the Parthians also rebelled on the northeastern end of the empire.
- Antiochus went to deal with the Parthians, and appointed a general named Lysias to: 1. Be regent at the capital 2. Be the guardian of Antiochus’s son (next in line for the throne) and 3. Deal with the Jews.
- Lysias sent Nicanor and Gorgias with their armies (40,000 infantry, 7,000 cavalry), along with Hellenizing Jews and volunteers from other nations, to stamp out the rebellion. They were so sure of their success that they invited slave dealers to come along and buy Jewish prisoners.
- From their camp at Emmaus, Nicanor sent Gorgias and 6,000 (5,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry) men to do a surprise night attack against Judah and his forces at Mizpah.
- Judah had broad popular support, so he was informed of Gorgias' plans. He had his forces leave Mizpah and come up on Emmaus from the south.
- When Gorgias got to Mizpah he found that was abandoned, so he had his army look for fugitives in the hills. Not finding any, he went back to Emmaus.
- There he found that the camp was on fire, because Judah and his 3,000 men had attacked Nicanor's army, sent it fleeing, and burned the camp.
- Gorgias' army was intimidated by the Jews being in battle formation to face them, so they too ran away to Philistia.
From Battles of the Bible, by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon
The Battle of Beth-Zur
- Lysias took personal control of the army against the Jews this time and tried to reach Jerusalem from the south. He had 60,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry.
- About 16 miles from Jerusalem, Judah and 10,000 attacked from the hills and narrow ravines at Beth-Zur. This caused Lysias to lose 5,000 men and he withdrew to Antioch until he could raise an army of mercenaries the following year.
- This opened up the road to Jerusalem (though the Syrian-Greek garrison by the Temple Mount, the Accra, was still there).
From Battles of the Bible, by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon
From Solomon Grayzel’s A History of the Jews
Rededicating the Temple
- In 164 BCE, the Jews were able to enter Jerusalem, three years after Antiochus had made the Temple a place of worship for Greek gods.
- The High Priest who had been appointed by the Syrian-Greeks as a Hellenizing influence, Menelaus, left the city along with the other Jews who preferred to side with the Hellenists.
- Judah assigned a force to keep the Syrian garrison in the Accra from causing problems.
- The Jews purified the Second Temple. This included pulling down the defiled altar, though they left the altar’s stones in a pile on a nearby hill until a suitable authority could tell them what to do with them.
- There was an 8-day celebration of the rededication of the Temple, starting on the 25th of Kislev. It was 8 days partly because they had missed Sukkot during the fighting, and partly because Solomon’s dedication of the First Temple took 8 days.
This is a 1983 video version of the story of Chanukah, with Jewish learning being depicted as lights.
The Miracle of the Oil
- According to I Maccabees 4:54 (written shortly after the events occurred), the dedication ceremony took 8 days. Perhaps this is because the original dedication ceremony of the First Temple under King Solomon took 8 days.
- According to II Maccabees 10:9 (written shortly after the events occurred), the dedication ceremony took 8 days because Sukkot is 8 days and they had not been able to celebrate it during the fighting.
- According to Pesikta Rabbati 2:1(written about 600 years after the events occurred), the Jews found 7 spears stuck in the ground by the Temple. They hollowed out the ends and used them as a make-shift menorah.
- According to the Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 21b:10 (written about 600 years after the events occurred), the Jews only found enough sealed oil to last 1 day, but a miracle occurred and it lasted 8 days until more oil could be produced.
- This “miracle”, if it occurred, was not considered noteworthy enough to make it into the contemporaneous accounts of the Books of Maccabees.
- It is important to know that the Rabbis who wrote the Babylonian Talmud did not like the Hasmoneans because their descendants had a fratricidal civil war which led to Rome being invited into the Land of Israel and eventually taking over.
- It is important to know that the Rabbis who wrote the Babylonian Talmud did not like the Hasmoneans because they insisted on being both kings and high priests simultaneously.
- It is important to know that the Rabbis who wrote the Babylonian Talmud did not like the Hasmoneans because they later killed many Pharisees (the forerunners of the Rabbis).
- The Rabbis also had an agenda of bringing G-d into holidays where G-d was not as apparent, such as Purim.
- The Rabbis also had an agenda of tamping down on militarism, so that there wouldn’t be a rebellion against the Persians like Mar Zutra’s revolt against the radical Persians who were oppressing Christians, conservative Persians, and Jews (495 CE).
- Note that if the Jews were using a make-shift menorah, as the Pesikta Rabbati claims, then 1 day worth of oil for the regular menorah could easily last 8 days in a menorah that doesn’t hold as much oil (Kippah tip to Miron Hirsch).
“The Latke Ditty” was written by Ben Aronin. Ben Aronin (1904-1980), known as "Uncle Ben" was the Jewish educator / B'nai Mitzvah tutor at Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago, primarily in the 1940s-70s. He was an author, playwright, camp director, TV series producer, and songwriter. His most famous song is "The Ballad of the Four Sons". This song (jokingly) posits another origin story for the oil shortage in the Temple. Note that in the beginning you can make “glorify” and “defy” rhyme by tweaking where the emphasis goes.
Taking Care of Business
- The towns outside of Judea (the center of the Land of Israel) didn’t like the Jews. They sent soldiers and money to help the Syrian-Greeks fight the Jews, and also attacked the Jews living in their cities.
- For example, the pagans of Jaffa drowned 200 Jews living in their city, and other cities did other such things.
- From 164-163 BCE, Lysias was busy acting as regent for Antiochus V, since he was only 9 when Antiochus IV died.
- Simon and Judah used the time to take their forces to Akrabattine, Perea, Gilead, and the Galilee to get those cities to behave. This meant not helping the Syrian-Greeks and not attacking their Jews. Some of the Jews preferred to move to Judea.
- Two of Judah's commanders, Joseph and Azariah, were not as successful. They tried to take on Gorgias despite being told not to and lost 2,000 men (about 10% of Judah's forces).
- Judah dealt with the situation by doing what Joseph and Azariah were supposed to have done, namely getting the cities of Jaffa, Jamnia, Hebron, and Azotas to behave better toward their Jews. Along the way, he beat Gorgias at Marisa.
- Judah did not seek to conquer the cities or annex them to Judea, merely to convince them to be better to the Jews living there.
From Battles of the Bible, by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon
This is from Richard Gartner’s Atlas of the Bible.
The Battle of Beth-Zechariah
- With all that out of the way, in 163 BCE Judah turned his attention to the garrison in the Accra next to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
- Lysias decided to deal with the rebellion with more force and brought the biggest army that the Maccabees had seen yet to fight near Jerusalem -- 100,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, and 32 armored war elephants with archers in wooden towers (something new against the Jews).
- Lysias came up again from the south, burst through Judah's defenses at Beth-Zur, and forced a fight on the open ground near Beth-Zechariah.
- The armored elephants, maddened by wine and mulberry juice and pressed forward by their Indian handlers, did much damage. Eliezer, one of Judah's brothers, thought that Antiochus V (next in line for the throne) was riding on one of them, so he stabbed the elephant from underneath, the one place that the armor didn't reach. The elephant died, but it fell on Eliezer and he did too.
- The Maccabees lost the battle and retreated behind the newly-repaired walls of Jerusalem.
- Lysias besieged the city, planning to starve the Jews into submission.
From Battles of the Bible, by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon
The Battles of Capharsalama and Adasa
- Then news came that a rival of Lysias was attacking Antioch, the capital of Syria. This made Lysias want to settle matters with the Jews.
- He offered religious freedom for the Jews, removing Menelaus (the Hellenizing High Priest) and executing him, and amnesty for Judah and the rebels. However, his terms also included destroying the walls of Jerusalem (including the Temple fortifications), leaving the Temple Mount, acknowledging Syria as ruling Judea, and the Syrian-Greeks appointing Alcimus as the High Priest.
- The governing council of the Jews (Maccabean officers and respected scribes and elders) met to discuss this. They decided that this would give religious freedom, which had been the point of the fighting for most of them.
- Judah and a few of his followers didn't trust that the Syrians would actually stay out of the affairs of the Judeans, and he anticipated that this would put the Hellenized Jews back in charge of Judea. He was also worried that the common people, from whom he came and who were now running the country, would go back to being oppressed by the oligarchs.
- However, Judah was outvoted, so he and his followers left Jerusalem for the Gophna Hills to the north, and the terms of peace were accepted.
- Alcimus soon proved that Judah's concerns were well-founded, putting to death many of the non-Hellenized Jews. This caused many of Judah's followers to seek Judah out, causing the war to continue. Judah sought to isolate the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem.
- In 162 BCE, Demetrius I, the son of Antiochus IV's brother Seleucus IV, killed his cousin (Antiochus V) and Lysius, Antiochus V's protector.
- Alcimus asked Demetrius I to send an army to protect him from the committed Jews. Demetrius sent Nicanor to lead an army of 3,000 out of Jerusalem along the Way of Beth-Horon, and Judah ambushed them at Capharsalama. They retreated, and Judah won new support.
- Nicanor tried again along the same route in 161 BCE, meeting reinforcements from Lydda at Lower Beth-Horon. When they all marched back to Jerusalem, Judah ambushed them at Adasa, with Nicanor being the first killed. The Syrian-Greek soldiers ran away to their stronghold 22 miles away at Gazara, away from Jerusalem.
- The date of this battle, Adar 13, became a minor Jewish holiday, the Feast of Nicanor (https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-ancient-judean-holiday-yom-nicanor-13th-of-adar)
Battle of Elasa
- Judah sent a delegation to Rome, which was an enemy of the Seleucids, and the Senate declared that the Romans were friends of the Judeans (although this news didn't arrive until after Judah's death).
- Demetrius sent his best commander, Bacchides, to Judea with the most elite army unit. Judah did not fight this army unit on its way to Jerusalem, and many of his men deserted.
- Bacchides set up camp at Beeroth in order to threaten Judah's camp at Elasa. Judah was vastly outnumbered (with only 800 men) but rather than withdraw from the fight in order to continue the war, he chose to fight to preserve his honor. He attacked the part of the Syrian-Greek army that had Bacchides leading it, but the other part of their army pivoted and trapped his army.
- Judah died and the few survivors fled to the Wilderness of Tekoa, to the southeast of Jerusalem, near the Dead Sea (though Judah's brothers Jonathan and Simon managed to bury Judah in Modi'in). There was great sorrow throughout Judea over Judah's death.
From Battles of the Bible, by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon
This is from Richard Gartner’s Atlas of the Bible.
Under Jonathan
- In 161 BCE, Judah's brother Jonathan became the next leader of the Maccabean revolt.
- Jonathan and the remaining Maccabees fled across the Jordan River, where they continued to harass the Syrian-Greeks and the Hellenized Jews. The Syrian army kept trying to pin them down and destroy them, but did not succeed.
- During this time, the idea of a reward and punishment after death began to take root among the common Jews who were trying to make sense of how the rich Hellenized Jews were seeming to be so successful in this life.
- In 159 BCE, Alcimus died, thus weakening the Hellenistic party in Jerusalem.
- After 5 years, by 156 BCE Jonathan had picked up enough support and strength to move his force to Bethbasi, where he threatened the north-south road to Jerusalem.
- The Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem asked the Syrians to come back and deal with the Maccabees again. Bacchides laid siege to Bethbasi.
- Jonathan's brother Simon managed the defenses, while Jonathan took some of his forces to harass the Syrian supply lines.
- Bacchides got frustrated that his army was getting bogged down in Judea and turned on the Hellenizers in Jerusalem, killing many of them.
- Jonathan offered to negotiate. The fighting stopped and prisoners were exchanged. Bacchides went back to the Syrian capital at Antioch and Jonathan set up an opposition government.
- In 153 BCE, a pretender to the Syrian throne, Alexander Balas, sought the help of Egypt and Rome to take over the empire. Even though they knew he was not actually the son of Antiochus IV, it was to their advantage to have a weakened Seleucid empire, so they supported him.
- Both Alexander Balas and the real king, Demetrius I, tried to get support in the Syrian provinces, including Judea. They both wanted Jonathan to raise an army for them.
- Demetrius I made the first move, giving Jonathan royal authority to recruit and arm an army. Jonathan moved his government to Jerusalem, and the Syrians mostly left the country (except for garrisons at the Accra in Jerusalem and Beth-Zur).
- Alexander Balas made the second offer, giving Jonathan the High Priesthood.
- For the next decade, Jonathan played them off of each other. By the end of it he was the High Priest and governor of Judea, while his brother Simon was the governor of the former Philistine area on the coast. Jonathan had even been received with honor at the marriage of Alexander Balas to Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy VI of Egypt (way earlier than the famous one).
- While this was going on, Jonathan sent another delegation to Rome to renew their alliance. He knew they wouldn't send an army to help him because the Romans only wanted to see the Seleucid empire broken up, but he thought it might be a good idea to have the Romans on his side anyway.
- At this point, Judea wasn't completely free, but it was self-governing within the Seleucid empire.
Jonathan Has to Fight Again
- Demetrius I died in battle against Alexander Balas, and his son, Demetrius II, took up the fight. He allied himself with Egypt, getting both weapons and Alexander's wife Cleopatra (who presumably had no say in whom her father married her to).
- Demetrius II sent his regional governor, Apollonius, with an army to punish Jonathan for working with Alexander Balas. This didn't go well for the Syrians.
- Jonathan left Jerusalem with his army and headed for the coast, taking Jaffa, avoiding an ambush south of Jamnia, and defeating the Syrians at Azotas.
- Jonathan then laid siege to the Accra, but this time the Syrians had issues elsewhere and didn't help the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem.
- Instead, Demetrius met Jonathan at Ptolemais, gave him much of Samaria, ended the annual tribute, and confirmed Jonathan in his offices.
- In 143 BCE, Alexander Balas was assassinated, but his general Trypho had Alexander's son declared Antiochus VI. Jonathan sided with Demetrius II and sent 3,000 men to Antioch to help him.
- Demetrius II reneged on his promises to Jonathan, though, so Jonathan switched to Trypho's side. This got him territory on the coastal plain (which was strategically valuable).
- Jonathan then worked on getting control of the Upper Galilee, but he got ambushed by Demetrius II at the Plain of Hazor.
- However, he recovered, won that battle, and drove the the enemy from the area.
- Jonathan began repairing Jerusalem's walls and the Judean fortresses. Trypho didn't like that Jonathan had control of Judea, including Jaffa.
- Trypho desired to overthrow his puppet king, and to that end he decided to use treachery to eliminate Jonathan.
- Trypho offered to turn over Ptolemais to Jonathan; once Jonathan and his 1,000-man honor guard was in the city (including his sons), his men were slaughtered and Jonathan was taken captive.
- Trypho and his army took the coastal route to attack Judea from the south, but they were blocked by a snowstorm near Adora. They crossed the Jordan River rather than attack Judea and killed Jonathan at Bascama in 143 BCE.
This is from Richard Gartner’s Atlas of the Bible.
Under Simon
- The people turned to Jonathan's brother Simon to lead them.
- To make it clear that this was not him grabbing power, he convened a gathering of important priests, the heads of important families, and the leaders of the fight for independence. This was "the Great Assembly", which had convened to ratify Ezra and Nehemiah's reforms (roughly 445 BCE) and also when allegiance had to switch from Egypt to Syria in 198 BCE. While there were aristocratic Hellenized Jews in this Assembly, they were outvoted by the non-Hellenized Jews (unlike the previous one). (When Pirkei Avot 1:2 says that Simon the Righteous was the last of the members of the Great Assembly, it is referring to the Simon the Maccabee.) The Sanhedrin grew out of this last Great Assembly.
- Recognizing that Simon was neither from the High Priestly family nor from the Davidic line, but that none of those families were identifiable or available at the time, the Great Assembly confirmed Simon as ruler and High Priest "until a prophet should arise who could identify the rightful holders of the offices".
- Once confirmed, Simon took over the fight, with his roles as High Priest and governor / ruler confirmed by the people (through the Great Assembly) and the Syrian-Greeks (through their deal with Jonathan).
- Trypho murdered Antiochus VI and took the throne for himself. Simon got Demetrius II to agree to full independence for Judea in exchange for his support.
- In the spring of 142 BCE Judea became independent and people started to write in their contracts and documents "In the first year of Simon the great high priest and commander and leader of the Jews."
- 25 years had passed since Mattathias began the rebellion against the Syrian-Greeks.
- Simon finished fortifying Jerusalem's walls and moved to make sure that Jaffa stayed part of Judea, which was important because it gave the Jews an outlet on the Mediterranean Sea.
- Gazara was an important Syrian position guarding two of the western approaches to Jerusalem; Simon took it and made it a Jewish military base under the command of his son John Hyrcanus.
- Simon got the Accra to surrender through a siege in 141 BCE. Once he expelled the garrison he destroyed the building. Jerusalem was now fully in Jewish control for the first time since the Babylonians in 586 BCE.
- He was well-liked for how he ran the country, bringing peace and prosperity.
- The only exception was one group of Jews who didn't think Simon should be the High Priest -- they moved to the northwestern end of the Dead Sea (Lake Asphaltitis) at Qumran. Simon, or one of the other Hasmoneans, became "the Wicked Priest" in the Dead Sea Scrolls that they wrote.
- Simon also issued the first coins of the newly independent country, though unlike other coins of the time he didn’t put his face on them (since people are created in the image of G-d, and the Second Commandment in the Ten Commandments says not to make any images of G-d).
- The Roman Senate affirmed the right of the Jews to their lands (since this furthered the Roman goals of weakening the Seleucids). Simon also established relations with Sparta.
- In 139 BCE, the last strong Seleucid king, Antiochus VII, tried to assert authority in Judea. Simon was too old to fight, so he sent his sons Judah and John Hyrcanus to lead the army. The Syrian-Greeks were defeated at Kedron.
- Having failed to eliminate the Jews that way, Antiochus VII recruited Simon's son-in-law to murder Simon and two of his sons, Mattathias and Judah at Dok near Jericho in 135 BCE.
- John Hyrcanus managed to not get killed and he became the leader in Judea.
This is from Dr. Ian Barnes’ The Historical Atlas of the Bible. The white line is where things were when Simon died in 135 BCE.
With appreciation to: The Bible as History, by Ian Wilson, The Readers Digest Atlas of the Bible, by Joseph Gardner, The Historical Atlas of the Bible, by Dr. Ian Barnes, A History of the Jews, by Solomon Grayzel, and Battles of the Bible by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon