We celebrate Hanukka in commemoration of the Macabee revolt against the hated Syrian overlords and recapture of the Temple Mount from Syrian Greeks in around 167 BCE. It is the only time in ancient history that the Greeks were defeated and this time by a handful of priests and farmers.

The Greek leader Antiochus 1V Epiphanes built a ‘Akra’ (Citadel) which provided oversight onto the Temple Mount. His soldiers spied to spy and keep watch over our rebellious Maccabean ancestors. The Akra was a thorn in their flesh: it was a constant threat with the Syrian Greeks watching all they were doing on the Temple Mont. But where was the Akra, and how could it overlook the Temple Mount, which was higher than all the surrounding areas?

In 141BCE Simon Maccabees captured the Syrian Aka and expelled its evil foreign soldiers. The early Jewish historian Josephus also mentions the event. He says that Simon took the Akra by siege, razing it to the ground that it might not serve his Simon’s foes, s a base to occupy and do mischief.¹

Just recently archeologists f rom the Israel Antiquities Authority exposed the massive foundations of a large tower. They claim the tower could have risen to a great height, and probably built to overlook the Temple site, located to the north and not far away. From here the Syrian Greeks were able to keep their rebellious Jewish subjects on the Temple Mont under constant surveillance, and at the same time under the likely threat of retaliation. They claim they have found the ‘Akra’, or at least its foundations.

Other finds around the base of the foundations included heavy lead slingshot projectiles and ballista sling stones.Remnants of many metal arrow heads were also found, some in bronze and marked with a small symbolic trident, which was the insignia of Antiochus 1V

Epiphanes, leader of the  Syrian Greeks.  Numerous foreign coins and extensive clay sherds from large wine jars gave them the probable dates of the finds, as well as indicating that the tower’s inhabitants were non-Jewish.

The Maccabees could not tolerate the presence of this overbearing and threatening tower, and on 23rd Iyar of the year 241 BCE, they captured it, “to a chorus of praise and the waving of palm branches, with lutes, cymbals and zithers, lyres and songs.” And so they celebrated the final riddance of a formidable enemy. The Syrians troubled them for war for 74 years.

We Israelis, look to history and to scripture, which have a cyclical aspect. Jesus kept Hanukkah. “Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple in Solomon’s porch.” He responded to taunts with: “The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” 

We take heart, and see through these dark days of terror, now trying to clutch the globe in its death grip. We know the end of the story.   Hag Samach, Happy Hanukkah!

¹ Jewish Antiquities X111:215.