June 22 217 BCE – 13 Tammuz 3544
After generations of warfare between the heirs to Alexander the Great’s extensive empire, Ptolemy IV, king of Egypt, once again defeated his Seleucid enemy, Antiochus III, in the battle of Raffah or Rafiah. Only 19 years later, Antiochus finally wrested control of the Holy Land from the Egyptian Ptolemies in the battle of Banias, replacing their tolerant, beneficent two centuries of rule with a tax-heavy hand. The anti-Jewish legislation introduced by his successor, Antiochus IV, would result in the Hasmonean revolt and the story of Hannuka.
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