Chanukah has long been intimately connected to the history of Jewish martyrdom. It is understandable that this dark and gloomy side of the “Festival of Lights” has been de-emphasized in favor of the luminous miracles associated with Chanukah: both the military victory and the storied miracle of the oil. Yet the Second Book of Maccabees describes in protracted, gruesome detail the torture and execution of seven faithful, pious brothers – sons of an unnamed mother commonly identified as “Hannah” – who is also murdered.
This passage is among the earliest to give explicit expression to a Jewish belief in resurrection and eternal life. One of the brothers defiantly declares to Antiochus: “Accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the Universe will raise us up to live again forever, because we are dying for His laws” (7:9).
The first moments of Chanukah 5786 brought dark and tragic additions to the roll of Jewish martyrs, with the murder of holiday celebrants at Sydney, Australia’s Bondi Beach… including children, a Holocaust survivor, and the presiding rabbi.
Perpetrators of the attack were hardly the first “accursed fiends” to target Jews.
May the souls of all who lost their lives publicly celebrating Jewish life at Bondi be bound up in the bond of Life Eternal.
Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the editor of “Masorti: The New Journal of Conservative Judaism.” The latest edition of Masorti was published online in December of 2024. A subscription is $18 per annum.
This passage is among the earliest to give explicit expression to a Jewish belief in resurrection and eternal life. One of the brothers defiantly declares to Antiochus: “Accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the Universe will raise us up to live again forever, because we are dying for His laws” (7:9).