Overview

Forthcoming Award winning journalist Jeffrey Goldberg goes looking for Judah Maccabee, the warrior priest and Hanukkah hero who, together with his brothers, defeated the Assyrian Greeks in the 2nd Century BCE. Goldberg, who has covered the Middle East for the New York Times, the New Yorker, and now The Atlantic, where he is also the author of the enormously popular “Goldblog,” has spent years brooding about Judah Maccabee — an obsession he shares with Christopher Hitchens and Mel Gibson. He uses his quest  to uncover the historical as well as the mythical Maccabee, a figure of fascination for both Jews and Christians, and to think about Jewish power, the temptations of assimilation, the role of the Temple in ancient Israel, and whether latkes are better when mixed with matzoh meal.