I never realized until you referenced Mr. Tabin that Antiochus IV Ephiphanes didn't achieve total Hellenization over all the territory captured in 333 BCE.

Your man says, "They (the Jews)won an unlikely victory in the name of their religious freedom, retaking, rebuilding, and cleansing the sacred Temple of Judea, which had fallen into disrepair. According to tradition, one day's worth of oil miraculously kept the Temple's eternal light burning for eight days. This is the miracle that we Jews celebrate during Hanukkah, which began last night at sundown.

Unlikely indeed--in a literal sense. The Jews did not defeat the Greeks. The Greek language was the lingua franka and Hebrew wasn't used again until 1948 by anyone other than the Jewish clergy. Hellenization was a reality until the Roman conquest in 63 BCE.

Your man says <"How appropriate that this year, miracles of freedom seem imminent in so many corners of the globe."> and I might add in this year of political spin how convenient it is to reinterpret history if it serves a point.

Publius