What do we celebrate on Hanukkah? After a quick mention of the miraculous temple oil jars that burned for eight days, many sources will tell you it is about the incredible victory of the Maccabees in the face of persecution by the Assyrians (Syrian Greeks) who were ruling at the time Fight for Jewish religious freedom. The land of Judah. The centerpiece of the festival is the menorah, an eight-branched candlestick that we light each night, adding one candle each day, until it is fully burned on the eighth and final night.
But if you look at collections of vintage Italian and German candlesticks, you’ll see again and again a different character not mentioned in the standard story: a lone woman, triumphantly raising a knife. This is Judith, the OG Jewish badass lady who celebrated with the Maccabees during Hanukkah. Her spears once gleamed in the candlelight, reflecting the intricate metalwork of these menorahs and illuminating another chapter of Jewish history – lost in the overlapping shadows of modern misogyny, assimilation and Zionism.
Her story, told in hundreds of permutations over the centuries, goes something like this: Judith was a young, wealthy widow in the town of Bethulia during the Maccabean dynasty when she shouldered a mission from the Assyrian army. Responsibility for saving people. She shed her traditional tattered, drab mourning clothes, donned the finest fabrics and jewelry, and sneaked into the enemy camp with a bag of salty cheese and wine.
Arriving at the center of the camp, she slipped into General Holofernes’ tent. She seemed to praise his military prowess and offered him a tasty snack – and maybe a little more. Holofernes quickly devoured the cheese, not realizing that its salty taste made him thirstier than usual, causing him to drink a lot of wine. While he was drunk and asleep, Judith grabbed his sword and chopped off his head. She and her maid stuffed his head into a sack, and the next morning they hung it on a nail for all to see. The Assyrian army fell into confusion and fear and soon retreated. The siege of Bethulia was lifted and her people were actually saved.
The Book of Judith is not in the Hebrew Bible – like the Book of Maccabees, it is incorporated into Catholic and Orthodox Christian Bibles, and is included in the “Apocrypha” portion of some Protestant Bibles. Sometime during the Middle Ages, however, Judith became the main heroine of Hanukkah. Finally, it is not Judas the Maccabees who appears in the center of the menorah, but Judith, flanked by lions and mermaids, clad in elaborate robes, always holding her signature dagger. By the 16th century, some rabbis suggested eating cheese to commemorate her bravery, commemorating the salty treat that once killed Holofernes. The Italian Jews fulfilled the task at hand with their usual culinary flair, combining the wonders of oil with Judith’s story to create delicious fried ricotta pancakes.
Right: Menorah, probably from Germany (late 19th century) (Photo: Yair Hovav, © Israel Museum, Jerusalem)
Judith was particularly popular in Italy, and not just among Jews. Dozens of Italian artists depicted her, representing the victory of an oppressed people over their oppressors. Some Italians saw similarities between the Assyrian occupying forces and the Medici oligarchy of Florence. Thus, Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the few famous female Baroque artists, drew inspiration from this story to depict her own murder of the rapist, painter Agostino Tassi (Agostino Tassi) scenario, it’s no surprise. Perhaps the fascination with Judith by both Jews and Gentiles in the region was another factor that led to so many Italianate-style menorahs featuring her form. Often, non-Jewish craftsmen actually created ritual objects during that era, so they may have indulged in their shared love in the form of these menorahs.
Many saints compared Judith’s heroism to the legendary Jewish queen of Persia, Esther, a hero who risked her life to save her people and is celebrated in the Book of Esther and the festival of Purim Sing. Unlike the Maccabees, who also massacred dozens of their fellow Jews and other compatriots during their campaign against the Assyrians, Judith emerged victorious without causing any collateral damage. She went straight to the top – quite literally – and took care of business.
So why don’t we celebrate her anymore? Especially when it comes to delicious pan-fried ricotta pancakes?
Some point to sheer assimilation as the reason for her disappearance, as Jews began changing their Hanukkah celebrations to include gift-giving in an attempt to emulate European and American Christmases. While this was certainly a factor, Hanukkah was not an important holiday until the emergence of political Zionism in the late 19th century. Led by figures such as Max Nordau and Theodore Herzl, the Zionist organization was made up of Jews who for generations had tried to assimilate to avoid anti-Semitic attacks . This led to Nordau’s fantasy of “muscular Judaism”: a strong, manly “new Jew” who took his destiny into his own hands. Rather than fighting hatred through organized labor, this Jewish superman challenged the stereotype of Ashkenazi Jews as “feminine” and “weak” by breeding hatred from within himself. Especially after the Holocaust, ex haaretz Writer Mira Shakin explains: “Zionism searches for fragments of Jewish history that fit the image of a ‘new Jew’ who take their destiny into their own hands in order to erase the surface from collective memory They found the perfect role model in the masculine Maccabeans. Today, soldiers in the Israeli army are generally seen as carrying on the Maccabean legacy.
Right: Stamps benefiting the Jewish National Fund sold in the United States during Hanukkah (1938) (via Wikimedia Commons)
In exalting the Maccabees as the sole heroes of Hanukkah, most secular early Zionists failed to heed the warnings of the ancient sages who wrote the Talmud. These rabbis refute the violence of the Maccabees, from how they forced their neighbors to undergo circumcision to their founding of the despotic Hasmonean dynasty. They see that this violence will only bring more suffering. Or, as Rabbi Mike Rothbaum wrote, “It is born of violence but addicted to violence.”
What the rabbis recorded was not the Maccabean wars, but rather the fact that while rededicating a desecrated temple, a small portion of oil that was only enough for one night miraculously lasted eight nights. That’s the reason for today’s menorah. During Sabbath services during the holiday, we read from the book of Zechariah, which says that God will bless the world, “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.”
Perhaps the ancient rabbis could have foreseen the crimes committed by the Israeli state military today, which tragically include rampant misogyny and sexual violence—not only against Palestinians in countless horrific incidents, but to a considerable extent Even targeting female soldiers themselves. They knew that not only did it violate God’s commandments, but it also did nothing to make the Jewish people safer.
It’s no wonder that strong women like Judith have been largely forgotten.
Judith’s story shows that for those of us Jews protesting Israel’s crimes, our revolutionary spirit is written into our heritage. It’s long past time that we remember Judith’s story and start making new menorahs with her face again.
