Hanukkah may have come and gone, but since it’s still December I hope it’s not too late to share Cambridge University Library’s “fragment of the month” from the famous collection of Jewish manuscripts known as the Cairo Genizah. To understand this fragment, one must be familiar with the now-forgotten Aramaic text on which it is based, Marc Michaels writes.

Megillat Antiochus [the “Scroll of Antiochus”], as it is mostly known (though it has gone by various names) is an interesting pseudo-biblical book. Jews read Esther on Purim, Ruth on Shavuot, the Song of Songs on Passover, Ecclesiastes on Sukkot, Lamentations on Tisha B’av, and Jonah on Yom Kippur. A book for every occasion. But nothing on Hanukkah.

To fill this gap, someone living in the Land of Israel between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE wrote this Aramaic version of the Hanukkah story, modeled on the book of Esther. Yemenite and Italian communities, among many others, even included it in their Hanukkah liturgies at various points. It even appears in the 1949 Hebrew-English Birnbaum siddur. Around 1100, a scribe copied (or composed) an adaptation of the book in rhymed Aramaic verse, which was later found in the Genizah:

The poem starts like the megillah with a reference to the villain of the piece, King Antiochus IV, the Seleucid ruler, described here as king of Greece. However, it then misses out all of the establishing information about the king, his greatness, and his cities. . . . Instead, our poem leaps to a repeated refrain from the megillah and the prime cause of the difficulties chronicled: the three decrees that were imposed upon the Jews and that led to their revolt.

Those three decrees banned the observance of the Sabbath, the marking of the new moon, and circumcision.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.