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Game of Thrones – Hasmonean Civil War

Ilan Abecassis

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...

AntiquityArticlesHanukkahIssue 75 | December 2025Jerusalem

Clothed in Kindness – Clothing Sabbath

Levi Cooper and Itai Cooper

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 Levi...

ArticlesEarly modern periodGreeceHanukkahIssue 75 | December 2025Rabbis

Hasmonean Palaces

Eyal Regev

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...

AntiquityArticlesHanukkahIssue 45 | November 2018Land of IsraelReligions

A Brief History of the Hasmoneans

כותב

Hasmonean generations (click image to enlarge) All in the Family Priestly families preferred to marry within their own privileged class, but the Hasmoneans took this practice to something of an extreme. Despite the rivalry between...

Hanukkah

The Youngest Maccabee

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Guerrillas in the Hills The year 160 BCE found the Hasmonean family in a sorry state. Judah had fallen in battle, his army decimated and the Maccabee rebellion all but quashed. Seleucid king Demetrius I...

Hanukkah

Fighting for Heart and Soul

כותב

Why Hannukah? And Judah, and his brethren, and all the congregation of Israel decreed that the day of the dedication of the altar should be kept in its season from year to year for eight...

Hanukkah

Cast a Giant Shadow

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Antiochus' Castle People generally assume the history of Hasmonean Jerusalem began with the Seleucid conquest of Judea from the Egyptian Ptolemies, escalated with Antiochus Epiphanes’ anti-Jewish edicts and the idol he placed in the Temple,...

Hanukkah

Pools and Palaces

Eyal Regev

Oasis in the Desert Famed for its fertility and rare plants, Jericho was the garden of Judea during the Second Temple period, second only to Jerusalem as an urban center. Hot baths and flowing streams,...

Hanukkah

Hanukkah

Game of Thrones – Hasmonean Civil War

Clothed in Kindness – Clothing Sabbath

Hasmonean Palaces

A Brief History of the Hasmoneans

The Youngest Maccabee

Fighting for Heart and Soul

Cast a Giant Shadow

Pools and Palaces

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Hanukkah

Game of Thrones – Hasmonean Civil War

Clothed in Kindness – Clothing Sabbath

Hasmonean Palaces

A Brief History of the Hasmoneans

The Youngest Maccabee

Fighting for Heart and Soul

Cast a Giant Shadow

Pools and Palaces

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