Hellenism in Jerusalem - Ancient Greek Citadel

    As defined in Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, Jerusalem has gone through many tumultuous periods and cultural shifts in which, whether by cultural diffusion or by force, Jews were forced to reconcile with different cultures, religions, and traditions and how they affected their ways of life in various ways. One such era was that of Hellenism, a word which here defines the religious practices explored by the Greek empire. 

    Brought in by "a Jerusalemite called Joseph" of the Tobiad clan who "managed to secure the job of collecting the taxes of the most powerful men in the country", Hellenism sought to make Jerusalem "discard the old traditions", "shake off ancestral customs" and look "to larger horizons" (Armstrong 106). They saw themselves as "cosmopolitans", a word which is here defined by "citizens of the whole cosmos", "colonists and world travelers" who saw themselves as "citizens of humanity rather than members of a chosen people", causing many Jews to "acquire the rudiments of a Greek education" and give "their children Greek names" (Armstrong 106). While conservative Jews opposed these sweeping changes, the so-called "Hellenizers" eventually garnered influence enough to completely transform the Temple Mount, breaking down gates, planting trees to transform the sanctuary into a sacred grove, and building an alter to Zeus Olympios (Armstrong 114).

    We can see evidence of these sweeping changes to the Temple Mount in a recent archeological dig as reported by National Geographic. 

    In 2016, an ancient Greek fortress called the Acra, which was at the center of the Jews' eventual bloody rebellion against the Greeks and Hellenizers, was unearthed by archeologists. The fortress was built to tower over the Temple of Jerusalem and served as a symbol of Greek dominance, both politically and culturally. For more than two decades after the Jews' initial rebellion, Simon Maccabee in 141 BC captured the fortress and removed the remaining Greeks (Lawler).

    This find reveals a couple of things about the exact history at play. For one, there is no evidence to suggest Maccabee had the fortress dismantled, but rather it was taken apart over time when its stones were used for other things, especially during the later period of Roman conquest. It also, according to Israeli archaeologist Yonathan Mizrachi, suggests that “Jerusalem was for a longer time a Hellenistic city in which foreigners were dominant, and who built more than we thought". It's also especially significant because of a lack of other archeological evidence from this period; this fills in a number of gaps that were, indubitably, conspicuously there before.

Lawler, A. (2016, April 22). Jerusalem dig uncovers ancient greek citadel. Adventure. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/160422-israel-jerusalem-hellenistic-archaeology-passover-hanukkah