To all of our Jewish readers, Hag Hanukkah Sameach. This is the first night of Chanukkah, that minor holiday that got blown out of proportion due to marketing. Since Christmas got marketed to kids' greed, Chanukkah had to be so marketed as well.

Fundamentally, Chanukkah is a historical holiday. Although the clebration commemorates a supposed miracle (the use of one day's worth of oil for a full 8 days needed to purify the Temple) the underlying meaning is historical.

The ancient nations of Israel and Judah (probably never originally one nation despite what the bible says...though this is not definitively proven) had long ago been destroyed by Assyria and Babylon. They had been violently wiped from existence. Israel had believed in a multitude of shrines, the original Jewish way of worshipping, supposedly dating back to Abraham. But once Israel was destroyed, Judah did its best to centralize all worship in the Jeruselum Temple. So when Babylon razed that Temple and exiled the eleite of Judah, it was possibly the most traumatic experience in Jewish history at least up to that date. Though in the long and frequently traumatic history of the Jews, that may just be a matter of how the media spun the event.

Bottom line was, Judaism was slated for extinction by the Babylonian government. Arguably, Judaism was saved by the take over of Babylon by Persia. Babylon was the more brutal conqueror. Persia, despite the bad press it got from the Greeks who hated them, was among the most tolerant empires of history. They basically let local populations do whatever they wanted as long as they paid their taxes and provided troops for the army. To the jews this was liberation. They were given free reign, allowed to return from exile and allowed to rebuild their Temple. Persia was the good guy in much of the Eastern Medeterranean. Their religion, Zoroastrianism, didn't require conquered populations to adhere, so people could basically believe what they want and do what they want...as long as the Emperor got all the resources he needed to do what HE wanted.

In the end, Persia overextended itself. There could have been no way to know in advance that the attempt to take over a peripheral, minor collection of cities in the desolate place called "Greece" would ultimately bring Persia down. But Greece routinely defeated Persia. Basically, Persian armies were large, but often too diverse to be effective. Many leaders were required to lead the polyglot Persian army and each fought with their own methods. At best, this worked well because each unit had its unique and special way of fighting and could be effectively used by the Emperor as part of a large, effective army. At worst they all were simply impossible to untie into an effective fighting machine. The Greeks could often fall into even worse habits: infighting to a degree that makes the modern Balkans look tame. Successful generals often had a shorter career than failed generals simply because no one trusted a successful general in ancient Greece. But, when threatened badly enough, even the squabbling, mysogynistic, slave owning, nasty Greeks could come together and amaze the world by defeating the biggest superpower of the time. Imagine how the Vietnamese felt when America withdrew from Vietnam and you can imagine how the Greeks felt when they unexpectedly defeated the Persians...not just once, but several times. Persia gave up.

And the Greeks went back to infighting. Athens became dominant. Athens was a nasty place, definitely NOT the kind of place most of us would want to be. But then again, we wouldn't BE what we are if Athens hadn't gotten the democracy ball rolling. I'd say they got a lot of it wrong, but they did start it. Athens over reached, got hit by a plague, and was defeated by Sparta, a far, far, far nastier city. No one today would like living in Sparta. Most people who have ever lived wouldn't lie Sparta. So Sparta didn't stay dominant long.

Thebes was next. Most conservative Republicans might be shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, to learn that Thebes in part rose to success thanks to an elite military unit called the "Sacred Band." This sacred band of kick ass fighters was composed of gay couples fighting side by side. The theory was that if lovers fought side by side, they'd be far more likely to fight like determined madmen, never giving up. This worked really well for awhile and brought Thebes to dominance.

Next came a minor, vaguely Greek barbarian tribe: the Macedoneans. Ask any Greek and they'd tell you the Macedoneans weren't REAL Greeks. But under Phillip II and his son, Alexander, Greece lost to the Macedoneans. The basic success of the Macedoneans was to adopt the Theban military unit, the phalanx (developed from earlier Greek prototypes). The Thebans took the Greek phlanx to new highs and the Macedoneans did even better. Alexander added slightly better cavalry and a single tactical trick of reversing which flank you put your best cavalry and the combination of the best phalanx ever (only ultimately defeated by the early Roman legions), some of the best cavalry ever, and this single tactical trick no one seemed to ever figure out, and Alexander conquered more of the world than anyone until Genghis Khan and his sons. From Greece and Macedon all the way to India and Afghanistan and South to Egypt, Alexander conquered it and founded cities named after himself. Had he not died of what was probably dysentary in the swamps of Babylon (yes, it still stood), he'd have hit Arabia next.

When Alexander died, his main generals rapidly carved up his empire and fought it out for dominance for decades. Truth is, despite the variety of successors, only two were real superpowers. The Ptolemies took Egypt...and took Alexander's body, one of history's biggest PR stunts. Alexander had expected to be buried in Macedon. But Ptolemy stole his body and buried him in Egypt, thus implying that HE should be the real successor. And Egypt throughout ancient times was the breadbasket of the Western World. So the Ptolemies had it rich. Until Cleopatra chose the losing side with the brutal drunkard Marcus Antonius, the Ptolomies controlled Egypt's riches. Egypt basically functioned like it always had, led by Egyptian priests, but was ruled by Greeks living mostly in the Greek city of Alexandria (one of hundreds of that name, but the biggest and most successful).

The main opponant of the Ptolomies were the Seleucids (the c is pronounced like a k...like with Macedon). The Seleucids were a much looser conglomerations of people that never really held together, but was the biggest part of Alexander's Empire. Their fall started almost immediately, but lasted for a very, very long time. As with the Ptolomies, it was Rome that ultimately destroyed the Seleucids, but that was far in the future.

As with almost the entirety of the ancient world, the Egyptian superpower (now Ptolomeic Egypt) and the Syrian/Turkish superpower (now the Seleucids) fought over the area of Lebanon/Philistia/Israel/Judah. That was the main battle ground of superpowers from as far back as history records. In fact, the term Armageddeon comes from the city of Meggidio which was one of the more frequent site of superpowers duking it out. Seldom did the superpowers fight eachother on their core territory. Usually the fights were in what is modern day Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. And the ancient Lebanese, Israelis and Phillistines were the main victims of those wars.

The Jews had liked the Persians (the story of Purim seems mythical). They had been allowed to refound their Temple, the main city of Judah (Jerusalem) and to maybe even build their city wall again, though that created some difficulties. When the Greeks swept in and with absolutely no warning took over the known world, the Jews really played little role. Suddenly the Empire the Jews felt okay with was replaced with a far more egotistical, pompous bunch of upstarts who thought they knew everything. Jews were not happy. But, by and large, the early Seleucids let the Jews alone. But they really felt that Greek ways were the ONLY ways. The Greek equivalent of McDonalds and Starbucks spread from Greece and the Balkans down to Egypt and all the way to Afghanistan (the famous Buddhas of Bamyan blown up by the idiot Taliban are typical of Buddhist/Greek art of the time). Some Jews became Greek in a big way. Others favored a purist form of Judaism rejecting Greek influences. This split was nothing new. Some of the greatest leaders of Judaism like Solomon and David, bridged the same divide between an ancient globalism and an ancient form of Chasidism (figuratively speaking...not literally). Assimilated Jews and orthodox Jews faced off almost daily as the Seleucids settled in to rule their diverse and unstable empire and fight it out with the Ptolomies.

At some point, Jewish loyalties became sufficiently suspect (did they secretly favor the Ptolomies?) that the Seleucids basically decided the Jews had to become Greek. The favored the Assimilationists and imposed some laws unacceptable to the orthodox. What happened next was unexpected. The superpower, Seleucia, suddenly discovered it was overextended and revolt ensued. Antiochus III had tried to solidify the empire, but in the process came up against a rising force that no Greek took seriously: Rome. Rome had already decisively defeated the Greek phalanx in Macedon, the site of its perfection, and was starting to lord it over the known world. The Seleucids came face to face with Rome when it tried taking Greece itself. Rome stopped him and demanded a fine.

Seleucus IV, son of Antiochus III, was faced with this large fine. And with an empire that had thought itself the best in the world but now found itself bowing to a rival...worse, a NON-GREEK rival. He failed...leading to an internal, family conflict that brough his brother, Antiochus IV, to the throne. This civil war pretty much meant the empire started full dissolution. A small part of this was the Jewish revolt under the Maccabees, a family of orthodox, anti-Greek Jews.

The Maccabee family started by attacking pro-Greek Jews and then became a terrorist/guerilla movement fighting Seleucid rule. They were a brutal but determined liberation movement with fundamentalist leanings. To everyone's surprise, they won. Pressure on the Seleucids from Rome may be the main reason for their success much as French pressure on England is probably the main reason America won the Revolution and "won" the War of 1812. The Maccabees founded the Hasmonean dynsaty ruling an independent Jewish state. Really the second of only three such states: the original Israel/Judah rival states, the Maccabean Israel, and modern Israel.

Of course the Maccabees rapidly fell into rivalries and civil war, with the Greek/Orthodox conflic re-emerging and with rival members of the ruling familiy fighting it out for dominance. This ultimately tempted Rome to intervene and one of histories greates egotists, Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great, later defeated by Julius Caesar) pushed his way in and established Roman domination. Eventually, Israel was absorbed into the Roman Empire. Two subsequent, very stupid, revolts by Jews led to the final destruction of the Temple and the slaughter of many Jews who lived in Israel. Of course, by that time the Diaspora already rivaled Israel and was largely unaffected by the revolts (except in Egypt and Syria).

Chanukkah celebrates the rededication of the second Temple (which was ultimately razed by Rome) after the Macabbeans had defeated the Greeks who had desecrated the Temple. That rededication and the required purification required 8 days of oil (presumably olive oil). Only one day's worth of oil was available. The Jewish frugality that allowed one day's worth of oil to last 8 days (I suspect they just blew out the lights after ritually lighting them) is the central theme of Chanukkah. But it is the defeat of a strong colonial empire by a minor but determined people that is the underlying meaning.

That is a theme that much of the world can appreciate.