Astral Codex Ten

Hanukkah

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Hanukkah

Article

Hanukkah is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 10, 2022 and December 22, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “claim that American Jews signal-boosted Hanukkah to compete with Christmas”; “Jewish leaders … made an effort to rebrand Hanukkah and started creating Hanukkah celebration for kids”; “Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!“. It most often appears alongside Christmas, United States, 9-11.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 10, 2022
  • Last seen: December 22, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Highlights From The Comments On Columbus Day
October 10, 2022 · Original source
All of our best holidays have begun as anti-holidays to neutralize older rites. Jesus was born in the spring; they moved Christmas to December to neutralize the pagan Solstice celebration. Easter got its name because it neutralized the rites of the spring goddess Eostre. Hanukkah was originally a minor celebration of a third-tier Bible story; American Jews bumped it up several notches of importance in order to neutralize Christmas.
Moving onto Hanukkah - some commenters like odd anon question my description of it as coming from a Bible story. This isn’t going to get resolved here - Hanukkah comes from the Books of Maccabees, some of which are included in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox conceptions of the Bible, but not the Protestant or Jewish ones.
Inline links: odd anon
Other commenters have meatier objections. In response to the claim that American Jews signal-boosted Hanukkah to compete with Christmas, Falernum writes:
Inline links: Falernum
Open Thread 413
December 22, 2025 · Original source
6: Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! I’ll continue not to post very much this week, and in particular to probably fail to post any Highlights From The Comments.