Alef: The NEXT Conversation

Hebrew for Hanukkah

By Adam Oded and Rafi Samuels-Schwartz

With our third issue, “Tongue Tied,” winding down, and Hanukkah just around the corner,  many of you may be wondering why we at Alef chose this time to focus on language, and in particular, Hebrew.  Well, believe it or not there is a method to our madness; this confluence of Hebrew and Hanukkah was not simply a random coincidence of scheduling.

But first, some brief history:

About 2200 years ago, our ancestors faced an attack on their religious practices.  The Seleucid Syrian Greeks under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, banned Shabbat observance, circumcision, and Torah study.  In public ceremonies they attempted to make respected members of Jewish communities eat forbidden foods.  Antiochus’ efforts were aimed at attacking the things that made Jews different from the rest of the Greek-speaking world.  Some Jews, like the Hasmonean family (sometimes called the Maccabees), rose up against these decrees and fought back.  The Jewish victory over the Syrian Greeks represented the triumph of Jewish identity over forced assimilation.

A little over 100 years ago, the Hebrew language was resuscitated into a living language after being relegated to ritual use for nearly 1800 years.   Today, Hebrew is spoken not only in Israel but in Jewish communities around the world.  Outside the Untied States, Hebrew has supplanted Yiddish as a Lingua franca of the Jewish People, enabling French Jews to talk to Russian Jews to talk to Brazilian Jews,to talk to South African Jews.

The connection between Hebrew and Hanukkah, while not immediately obvious at first, is still striking.  Without the cultural victory (to say nothing of the military one) of the Maccabees over the Syrian Greeks, Hebrew would be dead.  Not, to quote Miracle Max from The Princess Bride, “mostly dead,” but entirely, and totally finished, and the last two weeks on Alef would have featured stories about learning Greek.

So, as Alef moves into Issue #4, “The Holiday Season,”  we wish you all a Happy Hanukkah, and a Chag Urim Sameach.  And, no matter what language you speak, go easy on the latkes, folks!

Image provided by mfajardo, licensed under Creative Commons.

Tags: Hanukkah, Hebrew, Tongue Tied

Posted by Rafi, Friday, December 11th, 2009, 2:23 pm, Tongue Tied.