Clothed in Kindness – Clothing Sabbath

Teaser: The Jews who dominated Thessaloniki’s garment industry celebrated Hanukka by displaying their best wares – and by ensuring the community’s schoolboys were well clothed for winter. This worthy example spread far and wide

Hasmonean Palaces

Did the later Hasmoneans really become Hellenized, as many have theorized? Or were they like their palaces – Hellenist on the outside but Jewish within? The Hasmoneans were among the first to struggle to forge a distinctively Jewish ethnic identity

Game of Thrones – Hasmonean Civil War

The Hasmonean story began with the heroic Hanukka tale but ended in a civil war sparked by two rival royal brothers. Two cultural elites – Pharisee and Sadducee – vied for dominance in the death throes of the Hasmonean dynasty