The miracle of the jug of oil lasting eight days is first narrated in the Babylonian Talmud, centuries after the establishment of Chanukah. In 1891 Poland, Chaim Zelig Slonimski, an observant, science-minded Jew, denied the historicity of this miracle, claiming that he was following in the footsteps of Maimonides. Some of his enlightened colleagues—and even some secular Zionists—thought he was endangering people’s connection to Judaism and providing antisemites a pretext to mock the Talmud.
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