Maccabees: Liberators or Zealots?

I have been thinking a lot about the history of Hanukkah lately and how different Jews during different time periods have interpreted the story differently for their own situation. The Rabbis, weary of earthly kings, chose to focus attention on God's miracles rather than the Hasmonean's battles and susequent rule. American Jews found self validation in the theme of religious freedom. The Zionists saw the Maccabees fighting for Jewish self determination in their homeland. I will now join in this great chain of Torah (and I hope you all do too) and add my take.

We usually see Mattathias, the father of the Maccabees, and his sons as the great freedom fighters who fought against the Greek oppression of Judaism, but as the historian Elias Bickerman writes about them, "They made a stealthy and roundabout entrance into the villages and summoned together those eager to fight. The force moved from place to place destroying the idolatrous altars where they found them, compelling the observance of Torah by force. For example, they circumcised newborn infants, and killed apostate violators of the law. Thus, as their historian relates, they liberated the Torah form the hand of the heathen." It was the Jews who Mattathias and his sons fought against. Sure, as a rabbi I feel Jews should be practicing Judaism and not Greek paganism (or some sort of hybrid), but why did Mattathias get to define Judaism? Is Torah by the sword true Torah? Was Mattathias fighting assimilation or was he a religious fanatic, a zealot, an ancient Jewish Taliban? (I hate to make these historical comparisons, but it makes my rhetorical point, so please forgive me.)

This week, as we celebrate our people's war against oppression that happened over 2000 years ago, I can't help to think about religious coercion and fanaticism in Israel today. A woman was getting arrested for wearing a tallit at the Kotel. (Here is great commentary from the "criminal" and one here by one of my teachers.) Buses are becoming segregated between men and women. Conversions are being revoked. This is all because the state of Israel recognizes one way to be a religious Jew and gives religious authority to an increasingly fanatical group of rabbis. But, there is light (it is Hanukkah after all), the Israel Religious Action Center (an arm of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism) is fighting for religious freedom in Israel. We need to suport them and other groups like them as they show Israelis that there is more than one way to be a Jew. For Israel to be a light to the nations, we need to help make it a society were people are free from religious zealots.