Hanukkah may be one of the best-known Jewish holidays, but its status is anomalous if not marginal. The two books of Maccabees were excluded from. . .

In the 2nd century BCE, after centuries of living in a province of one or another empire, Jews won themselves a powerful independent kingdom. In. . .

Could the remains of the last Hasmonean king have been found under a private house in Jerusalem? (Registration required.)

Have excavations near the modern Israeli city of Modi’in exposed the hometown of the heroes of Hannukah?

The history of Hanukkah in America reaffirms the truth that Jews have been reinventing their youngest holiday since its inception.

In changing the holiday emphasis from the Maccabees’ successful uprising to the miracle of the oil, were the rabbis dissociating themselves from the later,. . .

Twice during the American Revolutionary War, Jews combined stories of the Maccabees’ defeat of the Greeks with thanks for their nascent country’s victories against the British.

Several ancient historians attest that, long before destroying Judea, Rome allied with the Maccabees against the Seleucids. Archeological research supports the claim.