^{by Rob Kerby, Senior Editor}

About 160 years before the historic events that Christians celebrate at Christmas, the Jewish people were struggling under the oppressive occupation of a Syrian-Greek invader, Antiochus IV. Delighting in the perverse, he sacrificed a pig in to his pagan gods in the Jewish Temple, forbade Israel from observing their faith in they way they had for centuries – ever since Moses came down from Mount Sinai. Furthermore, Antiochus was determined to blot out Hebrew culture. Alarmed, a small group, the Maccabees, inspired a rebellion.