The Jewish History Podcast - With Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe · TORCH

The History of Chanukah: Hellenism, Heroism and Hasmoneans (Rebroadcast)

·48 min·3 clips

Antiochus and Jewish Hellenists banned Torah study, Shabbos, kosher, circumcision, and nida.

1. The Jewish History Podcast episode “The History of Chanukah: Hellenism, Heroism and Hasmoneans” follows Greek rule over Judah and the Hanukkah story. 2. Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe hosts the show, and he says he re-released this 2017 episode after speaking with his friend Shia about hearing it every year. 3. The episode asks how Greek Hellenism collided with Torah and why Hanukkah became a holiday of both victory and memory. 4. Alexander the Great, who took power at 19, conquered the known world and died at 32 after a 10-year campaign. 5. The host says Alexander entered Jerusalem without a battle and tells the Talmudic account of Shimon HaTzadik greeting him in the eight priestly garments. 6. The Samaritans are described as hostile rivals from the Assyrian conquest who tried to persuade Alexander to destroy the Temple. 7. Alexander’s friendly relationship with the Jews is linked to the later naming of Jewish boys Alexander and the name variant Sender. 8. Hellenism is described as Greek art, architecture, language, philosophy, and a public embrace of the body, including gymnasiums and nudity. 9. The episode contrasts that with Judaism’s focus on God, Torah, the soul, and the conflict between the body and Olam Haba. 10. Wolbe says the Greek world and the Jewish world overlapped in ideas and universalism, but their values pointed in opposite directions. 11. After Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, his empire split into Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Macedonian realms. 12. Judah is described as a flashpoint between the Ptolemaic Greeks in Egypt and the Seleucid Greeks in the north. 13. Under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 70 Jewish scholars were sent into separate rooms to translate the Torah into Greek, the Septuagint. 14. The episode says those scholars made 36 identical changes to avoid misunderstandings, including changing “Let us make man” to “I shall make man.” 15. Wolbe notes that the translation date became a fast day, the eighth of Teves, because Torah in non-Jewish hands created danger and misuse. 16. The Seleucid takeover under Antiochus IV Epiphanes intensifies the pressure, with Jason installed as high priest and gymnasiums promoted. 17. The episode says Jewish Hellenists became active enforcers, pushing bans on Torah study, Shabbos, kosher laws, circumcision, and nida. 18. Antiochus is described as placing an idol to Zeus in the Temple and using torture, executions, and public humiliation to crush resistance. 19. The tone is historical, sermon-like, and explanatory, with long-form storytelling and repeated use of Talmudic and historical sources. 20. Listeners interested in Jewish history and Hanukkah will get the most from it; listeners seeking a short, light holiday recap may skip it.

As heard by us

A Hanukkah history talk that treats cultural pressure as a live problem.

Rabbi Wolbe uses Hanukkah to revisit Greek rule, Jewish sovereignty, and the pressure to read Torah through Greek categories. The episode has a clear line: history is doing more than setting the scene; it becomes the argument for what gets lost when Jewish tradition is treated…

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You want a Hanukkah listen that treats history as a living argument, with a calm, teacherly cadence.

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