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12.17.2009

Happy Chanukah!

I'm sorry for the long silence. Things have been a bit awry in my life as of late, and this blog has suffered. Sorry, blog (and readers).

I thought that this semi-recent David Brooks op-ed about the Chanukah story was interesting. I always love it when people discredit fairy tales about holidays and talk about the real history behind them.

Parts of this Yoni Brenner Shouts & Murmurs New Yorker piece made me laugh out loud. On the subway. (There were some parts that I liked less.)

Happy Chanukah!

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Comments:
good to hear your voice again. Hope your life untangles itself....
 
The Jerusalem Post magazine, a couple of weeks ago, had an article on the discovery of a stele with an inscription that seems to seems to be more consistent with the version of the story in the second book of Macabees, than with the first. That version does not mention the miracle of the oil, but says that the eight days were instituted as a kind of substitute for the eight days of Sukkot, which could not be observed earlier that year. The article points out if the Jews had found a flask of oil with the seal of the kohen gadol, Menelaus, they would not have been impressed, since Menelaus was one of the main Hellenizers they had been fighting against.
 
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