Page 10 - Issue 16

Americanization and Hellenization

By Dotan Brom

At Chanukah we remind ourselves of the Maccabees’
rebellion against the Greeks. A rebellion which more
than it was a military rebellion was a cultural
rebellion. Throughout Judea the Jews adopted
Hellenism: Greek names, Greek dress, Greek gods
and a Greek outlook. Greek art, Greek recreations
and Greek ethics. Throughout Judea the Jews
revoked their original cultural creativity in favour of
being part of a huge empire.

However within this assimilation, another voice was
heard. A weak but aggressive voice, which insisted
on an alternative - on a life of freedom and
independent choice and of original Jewish culture
and creativity. This voice carried with it additional
voices and at the end of our narrative we tell
ourselves how we gained our freedom, how we
continued to form our own lives.

However have we succeeded? When I look around
me, I can see a new Hellenization, an assimilation in
the current empire: the United States of America. I
can see a superficial and consumer-based American
culture, as a rule with nothing to say. I see American
brands everywhere - starting from the clothes that
we wear and the (fast) food that we eat, and as far
as the computers that we use and the cars that we
drive from place to place. I see American financial
perceptions that are taking control of the ideals
upon which our country was built and the American