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Hanukkah today would make the Maccabees roll over in their graves

JL;DR SUMMARY Hanukkah’s contemporary celebratory practices might bewilder the Maccabees, as it’s often seen as a Jewish equivalent to Christmas within American culture. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish CultureJewish IdentityDiasporaAmerican JewsAssimilationHanukkahMaccabeesMiracle Of OilSeleucid EmpireHellenistic Judaism

Places mentioned

Israel
"The holiday is really about the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire, a Hellenistic state that ruled over the area of Judea."
United States
"They may be more Hellenistic than Maccabean, but theyre still trying to hold onto Jewish practice and celebrating its survival."

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 70931
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-12-21 05:31:12 UTC
Curated 2025-12-21 08:30:54 UTC