Judah Maccabee, << JOO duh MAK uh bee, >> was the leader of the Jews in their struggle for independence in the 100’s B.C. He was the son of a priest named Mattathias from the ancient city of Modin. Judah’s name is also spelled Judas Maccabaeus. His family is known as the Hasmoneans in the rabbinic texts. Judah’s story is told in the Book of 1 Maccabees in the Apocrypha.
At that time, the Jews were subjects of the Seleucid Empire, one of the states formed out of Alexander the Great’s empire. The Seleucid king, Antiochus IV (called Epiphanes), wanted to get possession of the treasures in the Jews’ Temple. In 168 or 167 B.C., angered by Jewish resistance to his policy, he entered Jerusalem, killed many of the people, and defiled the Temple by building an altar to a pagan god there. This is known as the Abomination of Desolation in the Gospels and in the Book of Daniel. The practice of Jewish law was forbidden, and copies of the law were destroyed. Jews who disobeyed were killed.
War broke out when an officer of the king came to Modin and tried to make Mattathias offer sacrifice to the pagan god. Mattathias refused. He fled to the hills, and although he died soon after, his son Judah took his place. Though outnumbered, he repeatedly defeated the king’s armies. About 165 B.C., he re-entered Jerusalem and purified and rededicated the Temple. The Jewish feast of Hanukkah commemorates this event (see Hanukkah ). Judah won other victories, but in 160 B.C. he died in battle. His brothers, Jonathan and Simon, carried on.
