THE HELLENIZERS: THEN AND NOW Rael Jean Isaac & Erich Isaac There are extraordinary parallels between Israel, 1990 A.D. and 180 B.C., shortly before the Maccabean uprising. In both cases, the Jewish people were ruled by elites who sought to abolish Jewish particularism as a means to achieve acceptance by their neighbors. Every Jewish child who has attended the most rudimentary Sunday school has heard on Chanukah the story of Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), the Syrian tyrant who converted the Temple in Jerusalem into a temple for Zeus, outlawed Jewish law, from the observance of kashrut, the Sabbath and festivals, to circumcision, and forced Jews to participate in pagan rituals. What is not generally taught is that there was a powerful movement of assimilation to Hellenism among the Jewish elite prior to Antiochus's ascension to power -- so powerful, indeed, that Norman Bentwich pointed out in his 1919 book Hellenism that Antiochus "was less the promoter than the instrument of the policy which had its roots in the corruption of a part of the Jewish people." The "part of the Jewish people" to which Bentwich refers was the country's aristocracy, the priestly families who were not only the spiritual leaders, but the economic and political elite. As Victor Tcherikover observes in his magisterial Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, the upper priesthood inclined toward Hellenism "spontaneously," "as a natural aspiration." There is nothing surprising about this. As Bentwich notes, when there is one dominant civilization, the ruling classes of smaller nationalities are prone to desert their own culture for that of the larger world. Under Antiochus III, the Jews had been granted the right to order their affairs "in accordance with their ancestral laws." But the Hellenizers wanted to integrate more fully into the Seleucid empire; their "reform" program, as the author of I Maccabees, puts it, was: "Let us make a covenant with the Gentiles about us; for since we have been different from them, we have found many evils." Thus Jason, of the priestly Oniad family, who, as candidate of the Hellenizers, deposed his more traditionalist brother as High Priest, sought to obtain the economic and political advantages that went with becoming a Greek "polis." Jason renamed Jerusalem "Antioch-Hierosolyma," and established the institutions associated with the polis, including a hippodrome, an amphitheater and a gymnasium (on the Temple Mount itself) for training in the athletics that were not merely "sports" in the modern sense but intrinsic to Greek religious life. He also built an ephebeion, a Greek educational establishment for the youth of the priestly and wealthy Judean elites. The most radical Hellenizing faction succeeded in replacing Jason with Menelaus, an even more uncompromising Hellenizer, who obtained the support of the new Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV to stamp out the Judaism that survived in the Temple ritual and in the practices of the people. The masses of Jews, although themselves

inevitably influenced by Hellenism, had grown increasingly restive under the accelerating and ruthless Hellenizing campaign. They finally found their leadership when Mattityahu and his sons, themselves of the priestly class, rose in rebellion in the small country town of Modiin. The uprising followed an effort by Seleucid rulers and their Judean allies to make Mattityahu, as a leader of the community, participate in a pagan ritual. In a series of battles, the Maccabees routed the Judean Hellenists and the powerful Seleucid armies, purified the Temple, and eventually restored Jewish independence. The Jewish assimilationists at the helm of the Israeli government elected in 1990 had a similar agenda, but faced a different problem. The Labor-Meretz leadership, like the Hellenizers of the Maccabean period, had concluded that being "different" from the nations around them had produced many evils. Like the Hellenizers, Labor in Israel represented the elite in modern Israel, overwhelmingly of Eastern European descent. And like the Hellenizers, Labor represented the opinion-makers, the articulators of values in society, today the academics, journalists, TV and movie writers and producers. In a terminological inversion also known elsewhere, "Labor" in Israel denotes a strata which has acquired a conviction of self-worth and entitlement to political power closely analogous to that of feudal nobility or a self-anointed priesthood. Secular Western culture, especially in its Americanized form, has the dominant role Hellenistic culture once enjoyed. And the web of values that underly Israel as a Jewish state do not sit well with that culture. The United States prides itself on the separation of church and state; if Israel is to be a Jewish state, it must to some extent integrate the two. The United States prides itself on its celebration of diversity: members of all groups, regardless of race, religion or ethnicity, are equal citizens, with the same rights, responsibilities and privileges. As a Jewish state, Israel represents above all the interests of one "ethnos," symbolized by the Law of Return, giving all Jews who choose to come to Israel the right to automatic citizenship. Nor do all citizens in Israel have the same responsibilities: considered security risks to a Jewish state, Arabs are exempt from army service. Most important, the fundamental premise of the Jewish claim to Israel -- that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews by divine Covenant -- is alien to modern Western political thought, in which self-determination of peoples constitutes the contemporary "divine right." In Western eyes, the notion of historico-religious rights to territory is an atavistic throwback. Israel's Labor government took significant steps toward assimilating Israel to Western political culture in its most shallow form. Just as Hellenism was in many respects a corrupt and decadent version of the great Hellenic culture, it has not been what is best in Western thought but its disco technology that has captivated many of its Israeli supporters. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently noted that secular Israeli youth know more about Madonna than about Moses. (Continued on p.11)

July-August 1996               - 3 -               Outpost