In the times of Matisyahu and his sons, it was a small group of men who decided to turn their backs. They rose up against their ancestral tradition, rejecting that life in Eretz Yisrael continue on along the path followed by Jews in previous generations. They refused to be `primitive' and decided to import `enlightened Hellenism'. They turned their backs on the source of living waters to hew broken cisterns for themselves. They considered themselves `progressive' and looked down upon Torah-true Jewry with disdain. Why did they need the old fashioned Jewish culture which no longer had any relevance? They duplicated the Hellenist appearance, embraced their culture and all it entailed, and adapted their mind-set to the spirit of the times. Concurrently, they adopted all of the gods of the times and kowtowed to them, while not officially assimilating, but merely adjusted Judaism to their philosophy and attempted to infiltrate the Beis Hamikdash and its extended area, defiling it with their new style of worship. They fought so that Jerusalem resemble Athens.

From Our Archives

Who Is a Wise Man? by L. Jungerman The program which Yosef envisioned as a preparation for the years of famine was considered by Pharaoh and his advisors as extraordinarily brilliant. "There is none as intelligent and wise as you." Yosef himself presented his plan with the requisite that whoever was appointed to execute it be a wise and intelligent person.

They Have No Benefit from the Damage they Cause Us By Mordecai Plaut "Write on the horn of an ox that you have no part in the G-d of Israel." This was one of the demands that the Syrian Greeks made of the Jewish people in the period that led up to the Chanukah miracle, over 2,000 years ago.

False Identity by P. Chovav Part I - FICTION They called him Leibel'e Leibidiker. That's what they called him, but that wasn't his name. Not only was that not his name, but his entire essence was the antitheses of the joy of life that the name expresses. A cloud of fear and worry always hung over his face. His eyes were perpetually unmoving, and it was quite possible to assume that his lips opened widely only when he took out and put in his false teeth.

------------------------------->