This week in Jewish history: The miracle of Hanukkah and the birth of Jesus

Dec. 20, 1919: 

The SS Ruslan (“Israel’s Mayflower”) reached Jaffa port from Russia with 671 doctors, artists, and academics aboard. This marked the beginning of the Third Aliyah, which lasted four years, with over 40,000 Jews immigrating to pre-state Israel.

Dec. 21, 1804: 

Birthday of Benjamin Disraeli. The British statesman, author, and first Jew to serve as prime minister is famous for this retort: 

”Yes, sir, I am a Jew, and when the right honorable gentlemen’s ancestors were savages on an unknown island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.”

Kislev 21, 3448 (313 BCE): 

Shimon HaTzaddik, the last of the Men of the Great Assembly who rebuilt the Holy Temple and revitalized Judaism under Ezra, garbed in the vestments of the high priest and accompanied by a delegation of Jewish dignitaries, went forth to greet Alexander the Great, who was marching on Jerusalem at the head of his army. When Alexander saw the high priest, he dismounted his horse and bowed respectfully; to his men, he explained that he often had visions of a similar-looking man leading him into battle (Talmud Yoma 69a). 

Alexander spared Jerusalem, peacefully absorbing te Land of Israel into his growing empire. In gratitude, the sages decreed that the Jewish firstborn at that time be named Alexander, which remains a Jewish name to this day.

Dec. 23, 1791: 

Catherine II of Russia created the Pale of Settlement, forcing Jews out of the major cities and ports into the area known as White Russia, beyond which Jewish residency – permanent or temporary – was mostly forbidden.

Dec. 24, 1868: 

Birthday of mathematician Emanuel Lasker, a world chess champion for an unprecedented 27 years, from 1894 to 1921.

Dec. 25, 2 BCE: 

Birthday of Jesus (Yehoshua ben Yosef), a Galilean Jew whose life and teachings inspired the Christian religion, currently the largest in the world.

Kislev 25, 3622 (139 BCE): 

The Maccabees liberated the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after defeating the vastly more numerous and powerful armies of the Syrian-Greek king Antiochus IV, who had tried to forcefully uproot the beliefs and practices of Judaism from the people of Israel. 

The victorious Jews repaired, cleansed, and rededicated the Temple. When they sought to light the Temple menorah (candelabra), however, they found only one small cruse of ritually pure olive oil. Miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new, pure oil could be obtained. 

In commemoration, the sages instituted the eight-day festival of Hanukkah, on which lights are kindled nightly to recall and publicize the miracle and its message, which continue to illuminate our lives today. 

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