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Chanukah: Pressures to Assimilate, Efforts to Resist
The rededication of the Temple and the lighting of the menorah (even the inner person) symbolizes for Jewish writers the effort to resist assimilation. The poems oppose pre-existent conditions in the dominant culture (i.e., the closeness of Britain to traditional anti-Semitism in continental Europe and the supposed absence of an “established” religion in the United States).
Jewish writers have dramatized the difficulties as well as the triumphs of these efforts, and have thus helped to define the idea of a people. The Maccabean revolt as an image of Jewish manhood, especially as envisaged by Jewish women, has been striking.
19th and 20th century works by such writers as Grace Aguilar, Marion Moss, Emma Lazarus, Amy Levy, David Plotkin, Charles Reznikoff, Karl Shapiro.
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