The Fashionable Maccabees | Tuvia Guide
There is a sense outside Israel that the minimal rabbinic pageant of Hanukah was specified a new lifetime in buy to “compete” with Xmas. Escalating up in the Diaspora Hanukah was a time of 12 months marked by oily foodstuff, a lot of provides and stories about gentlemen in skirts and swords.
Hanukiah in Modiin, the spot it all happened. Picture (c) T. E book, 2020
In Israel, by distinction, Hanukah is a nationalistic getaway supplied a new lease of lifetime by the Zionist movement. When one particular is in Israel for the duration of a spiritual or nationalistic Jewish getaway 1 feels what it is like, as a Jew, to be part of a greater part tradition in at least a single region on earth. Tonight, on the very first evening of Hanukah, the full state will pretty much be lit up with Hanukiot (Menorahs) in each personal properties and community places. Even the practice stations will have Hanukiot! Small children are off college and, in usual occasions, many will be hiking all about the nation connecting with our land. Our household. Our Jewish heritage is made up of so significantly preventing towards seemingly unattainable odds: Hanukah, The Excellent Revolt, The Bar Kochba Revolt, The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt, the wars of our modern Jewish Condition such as the existing war in opposition to radical Islamic terror, the record appears to be limitless. The big dilemma is what is it that keeps the Jews fighting?
In spite of the simple fact that the early rabbinic tradition tended to play down the historical Jewish revolts, early Zionism eagerly seized on the tales as evidence that Jews, when confronted with persecution, were being capable of combating for their dignity and self regard. Max Nordau, an early preferred Zionist leader, wrote about the need to produce a new technology of “muscle-Jews.” He wrote that, “Bar Kochba was the very last embodiment in earth background of a bellicose, militant Jewry.” A lot of Zionist sporting activities golf equipment that sprang up in the inter-war years in Europe had been named either Maccabee or Bar Kochba, in honour of the legendary heroes who symbolised the “New Jew.” The “Jewish Olympics” which introduced, and still delivers, Jewish athletes from all all over the earth to contend in the Jewish homeland had been named the Maccabiah Games. This “New Jew” was the antithesis of the weak, pale hollow-chested Diaspora Jew, continually fleeing persecution, as portrayed scornfully by Chaim Nachman Bialik in his epic “In the City of Slaughter” poem in which he describes the aftermath of the notorious Kishniev pogrom, “Like scampering mice they fled, they hid like fleas and died the dying of pet dogs.”
“Bar Kochba” sports club athletes in pre-WWII Germany. Photo (c) Yad Vashem, 2020
For the nascent Zionist movement the tale of the revolts came to symbolise the hope that as we Jews returned to our homeland we would be ready to regain our honour by reclaiming our land, reviving our language and the potential to protect ourselves and, with all that we are wrestling and battling with, the capacity to handle our destiny and not depend on the pity of our host nations. We stay in an age of miracles and miracles!
IDF Soldiers, “The Present day Maccabees.” Photograph (c) T. Reserve, 2020
One of the most important modern-day miracles is the Jewish State emerging like a phoenix from the ashes of the Holocaust. Our courageous IDF troopers, the “modern Maccabees,” carry on the mission of the younger Jewish pioneers from the flip of the preceding century who toiled to produce a “brave new world” in which Jews would be capable to, in the terms of our nationwide anthem Hatikvah, “be a totally free people in our land.”
Dr. Tuvia Guide was born in London and lifted in equally the British isles and South Africa. Soon after making Aliya at the age of 17 and learning in Yeshiva he volunteered for the IDF, where he served in an elite battle unit. Upon his discharge he done his BA at Bar-Ilan College, as effectively as certification in graphic style and design. He then served as the Information and facts Officer at the Israeli Consulate of Philadelphia, though earning a graduate diploma in Jewish Scientific studies. On his return to Israel, Dr. Ebook graduated from a training course of study with the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, and is a certified tour guide.

Tuvia has been doing the job in the field of Jewish Training, each official and informal, for a lot of several years. He has guided and taught Jewish learners and educators from all-around the English-talking earth for some of Israel’s leading instructional establishments and programs. Tuvia has been guiding teams for Birthright Israel because its inception and, in addition, has lectured all over North The united states, Australia, Europe and South Africa. 

Tuvia served as a Shaliach (emissary) for the Jewish Agency for Israel as the Director of Israel and Zionist Education at the Board of Jewish Schooling of Higher New York (Jewish Training Job). He was a lecturer/educational information at the Alexander Muss Institute for Israel Education (AMIIE) in Israel for a decade. Tuvia has lectured at equally Bar Ilan College and Hebrew University. 

He is the writer (and illustrator) of the internationally acclaimed Zionism curriculum “For the Sake of Zion A Curriculum of Israel Education” (fifth edition, 2017, Koren) and is at existing working on his next guide, a heritage of the Jewish folks. Tuvia has a doctorate in Israel schooling. His dissertation title is: “Through the Soldiers’ Eyes: Discovering the Influence of a Birthright Mifgash on the Israeli Soldier Members.”
