Comments on: On Hanukkah: confessions of a closet Hellenist

By: Levi Kofman

Levi Kofman — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:00:10 +0000

Chanuka should be a dedicated as a yom hazicharon and day of mourning for all the Greeks that lost their lives to religious settler fanaticism. They died for the human body, for the Olympic spirit and for the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. As a sign of mourning we should sit on the floor and eat hard boiled egg with ash, lest we forget the fallen. We can combine this with the olive harvest festival and light eco friendly menorahs. This will be followed by an olympic ceremony where everyone is required to be naked and devote their time to the worship of the body. This is taking Judiasm back to it's true roots. Next, in the name of peace, I will extend an olive branch to my fellow Muslims and will ask them to join…perhaps we could combine our two strands into one. Peace and love.

By: James Steven Driscoll

James Steven Driscoll — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 18:52:41 +0000

As a Modern Hellenic Polytheist this is a wonderful and insightful article. happy Hanukkah and blessed Solstice.

By: Benjamin Levy

Benjamin Levy — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 23:32:42 +0000

Dear Ms Johnstone. Here's something that's might throw you for a loop. I don't want to create a new religion. Not at all interested. With that out of the way, it behooves me to inform you that what you imply is the true Judaism is but an amalgam of many different strands that have evolved over the centuries. That even as your strand of Judaism emerged, others did as well, and those others are as legitimate as yours. I will go further and declare that in Israel there are many other strands of Judaism that intertwine, and that some of those very Jewish strands emphasize Israeliness (is that even a word) and community, and service, country, language, and place. Judaism is not and has never been monolithic, get used to it. I recognize you and your strand as perfectly legitimate expressions of Judaism, I demand that you extend me the same courtesy.

By: Eran Lipp

Eran Lipp — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 22:24:11 +0000

I live on a moshav. my father in law grows olives and after the family effort of picking ends, we do feel festive about the Masik and the newly pressed oil. but surely that is hardly the point of this blog. Hanukkah as a festival of harvest? take it or leave it. its as legitimate as any other symbol of Hanukkah. and is to me what being Jewish during hagim is all about. Every hag, I search the symbols and archetypes of the hag that are of particular relevance to me that year. I find personal meaning in that connection, in addition to the religious-cultural-national connection in being part of a people who have lit the hannukiya and blessed it's candles for eons. and there is such deep comfort and solace for in me Hanukkah: the promise of light during the darkest time of the year; the reminder that miracles, great ones, happened right here; that if we open our eyes we will see them in our time as well, all around us; one of those miracles, surely, could be that of tolerance. maybe its time to appreciate the wisdom of others as well as our own. maybe we can feel safe enough to learn and choose what worldly riches we would like to add to ours. on a recent visit to Greece, I learned that so much of what we respect as "good sportsmanship" came from Olympia. that putting arms aside for the sake of communal activity was not just a philosophical quirk but a practice endorsed and funded (!) by local government for hundreds of years. I couldn't help my "kin'at sofrim", hoping our society could aspire to such priorities. another thing struck me there. the naked (gymnos) body which gave its name to gymnastics, was not the subject of vanity – it was a celebration of divine creation. married to a practitioner of (w)holistic medicine, I couldn't help but wonder: Where did Judaism loose the body? why does the Rambam stand out alone as a source of physical wisdom? How did we forget that the physical body is our vessel for carrying us through this world, for fulfilling the actions of mitzvot and not just their intentions, for being the temple of our spirit? Why does the modern incarnation of national Jewish pride in physical might, have to aspire to zealots? (in the form of the Maccabia's name sakes or of the IDF's ancient role models). maybe this year we can bless our candles and good fortune for being a free people in our country and using oil pressed from our own trees for lighting the hannukiya. remembering the mishnaic Rabbis who lead their communities away from battle and settled in places such as Yavneh, preferring a life of Torah over glorious death. Let life be glorious, and light, and all wisdom. Let tolerance and moderation be glorious and precious. Let that be a wondrous miracle bazman haze.

By: Eran Lipp

Eran Lipp — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 22:24:11 +0000

By: Ilan Toren

Ilan Toren — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 16:27:45 +0000

Howard Fox – Post-jew is a pull on the term post-modernism, e.g. make your own narrative and change history to justify it. Misunderstood comment: pearls before swine

By: Becky Rowe

Becky Rowe — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 15:45:09 +0000

Let me get this straight – As far as you are concerned, looking at a holiday in a way any other than the way you do makes me not Jewish? Does everyone today celebrate Hanukah in the same way? Do you know that for centuries after the destruction of the Second Temple, rabbis wouldn't even allow a celebration of Hanukah? They were scared to encourage fanatical zealots like Bar Cochba and his followers whose uprisings resulted in essentially ending Jewish life in the Land of Israel? In other periods, only the miracle was celebrated, because the emphasis centered on the hand of God in our lives. As I said, the celebration of the holiday has evolved, and I wrote this article as a piece to encourage thought about how and why we celebrate things. Why are people so threatened by that that they immediately make comments about my Jewishness. If you disagree, why can't you explain why and how you disagree?

By: Rebecca Johnstone

Rebecca Johnstone — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 12:23:46 +0000

Becky (and Benjamin Levy) – any time you want to start your own religion, using something from Judaism as a starting point, go ahead and join the many existing religions. But please call it something else. It's not Judaism. In this case it's Hellenism. The fact that you want to base it on my religion is your problem. Don't make it mine.

By: Levi Kofman

Levi Kofman — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:02:45 +0000

The Greeks were just minding their own business and peacefully harvesting their olive trees in their own native land when all of a sudden the one day the evil hashmonean Jewish settlers rocked up to spoil the party. These imperialists who hated peace and thrived off religious fanaticism, violated international law and committed grave war crimes by attacking the innocent greeks and destroying their olive harvest. An organization called Jewish hellnists for Peace Now, documented these grave war crimes. The most disturbing characteristic of this fundamentalist gang, was the fact that it refused to accept the greek god of philosophy, culture and art and refused to be like everyone else. Not only were they against peace, art and philosophy, they also hated the environment and emitted lots of CO2 into the ozone with their menorah lighting. Anyway, have a merry…ho, ho, ho….peace out.

By: Levi Kofman

Levi Kofman — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 23:40:29 +0000

Another ignorant opinion piece from TOI. It seems to be a common occurrence.

By: Ilan Toren

Ilan Toren — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 18:51:15 +0000

I'm not very tolerant of ignorance, but even less of deceit

By: Lorne Newman

Lorne Newman — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:41:00 +0000

Well written piece. Absolutely correct on the need for some consensus on the spelling of the holiday of Chewbacca.

By: Frank Seauvant

Frank Seauvant — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 18:59:10 +0000

Even pretty prose cannot defend an aberrant perspective of life where the human mind takes preeminence, as it did with the Greeks, and those like the author, the Hellenists, who fought alongside the Gentiles foes of Judaism, and, for the sake of convenience, rejects divine creation, providence and its gift of Torah to the Jewish people.

Note how her prose cannot relate to the fundamentals that underlie the Jewish faith. She can only slander it, albeit tangentially, as if her way of life cannot be questioned and as if her religious peers do not appreciate science, and what not, just as she can. Because of her Talmudic ignorance, she can label a profound thought as a "fable" or myth. Reformists, as the Hellenists, come in every generation but in the end their genealogy self-extinguishes because inevitably they intermarry after 2 or 3 generations and are lost from the Jewish gene pool. Not that they care, but their religious counterparts remain proud of their beliefs and heritage, as anticipate their glorious Messianic future.

Usually such witty reformists like to become "rabbis", and, like just said, thankfully they go extinct!

By: Tuvia Fogel

Tuvia Fogel — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 18:31:43 +0000

Indeed, Howard, the author of this blog is 'post-Jewish-verging-on-anti'. But she's a politically correct leftie, therefore it's Ilan who is being 'intolerant'. Capisce?

By: Benjamin Levy

Benjamin Levy — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 18:19:17 +0000

Becky Rowe puts me in the unfamiliar position of commenting on something that I agree with in ToI. Her points are well made and lucid and I found myself nodding my head even as I read.

It is time that all of us in Israel realize that Judaism is not an unchanging religious monolith that struggles with a changing world. It is, at least in Israel, much more than religion and tradition and we should embrace that. There is something deeply troubling intolerance; a holiday that celebrates vastly intolerant behavior surely must change if we are to build a just society in these parts.