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Volume 79, Number 3 • November 21, 2012 • 7 Kislev 5773 www.jewishpostopinion.com
Yehuda ben-Mattityahu was one of five brothers. Born following Yochanan and Simon, but before Eleazar and Jonathan, Yehuda was the middle child of a family called Hasmoneus. And long before they were thrust into Jewish history’s most underrated series of fortunate events, these boys were shaped by their high-priest father into a band of uncompromising patriots who yielded to no one. They leveraged this strength of certainty into a perfect storm of crumbling-empire meets partisanposse, and where vast armies were denied by a guerilla warrior general they called “The Hammer.” In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion’s whelp roaring for his prey. (Maccabees I, 3:4) Verse 2:4 of Maccabees I, written some 40 years after the events it chronicles, introduces us to “Judah, who was called Maccabeus,” a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew word ma-ke-vet or ma-ke-ves – a stonecutter’s mallet or sledge hammer. Clearly the heavy hitter among the sons of Mattityahu, “Judah The Hammer” is a moniker that easily evokes all the attitude and can’t-refuse insistence of a mob enforcer. Uncompromised and fanatically devoted to the rights of Jews to freely practice Judaism, Yehudah HaMakevet, his brothers, their armies of liberation, and all they accomplished deserve our remembrance and celebration as they commanded us, each 25th day of Kislev. (see About the Cover, p. 2)
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