Israelis glorify the Hasmoneans for purifying the Temple and liberating Jerusalem, but they were actually a bloodthirsty clan whose members turned on each other.
The Romans put them out of everybody’s misery.
By Ofri Ilany, Reposted from Ha’aretz, December 18, 2025
Eight years had passed since the liberation of Jerusalem and the establishment of the new Hasmonean state. The sons of the priest Mattathias ruled Judea with an iron fist. Simon, the brother of the hero Judah Maccabee, was both ruler and high priest. He conquered Jaffa and was loved by his people.
In the month of Shevat in 134 B.C.E., Simon and his sons were invited to a banquet by his son-in-law Ptolemy, son of Abubus, the ruler of Jericho, in the fortress called Dagon, or Duk. After Simon and his sons ate and drank their fill, some of Ptolemy’s men came out of their hiding places with swords to kill Simon and his sons Judah and Mattathias.
Fortunately, Simon’s third son, John Hyrcanus, survived. He took control of the country and expelled his treacherous relative. However, John Hyrcanus became embroiled in a conflict between the two influential Jewish sects in Judea, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
First he sided with the Pharisees, but after they offended him he went over to the Sadducees and carried out a brutal massacre of the Pharisee sages. Since the Pharisees were popular, John Hyrcanus became a despised leader. The conflict between the sects would cast a shadow over future generations of the dynasty as well.
Things continued to deteriorate. Two of John Hyrcanus’ sons, Aristobulus and Antigonus, were supposed to rule jointly, but their mutual affection evaporated. Aristobulus became suspicious of his brother and at the first opportunity ambushed and killed Antigonus in a dark alley in Jerusalem. Still, Aristobulus would know little peace.
The historian Josephus Flavius wrote: “Aristobulus repented immediately of the slaughter of his brother. But because of it, disease came upon him, and he was disturbed in his mind from the guilt of such wickedness, so that his entrails were corrupted by intolerable pain, and he vomited blood.” He died after less than a year in power.
The history of the Hasmonean kingdom is a tapestry of recurring motifs – the same names, the same betrayals, the same conflicts between Sadducees and Pharisees, the same blood-soaked family feuds. Such things aren’t uncommon in royal dynasties, but the Hasmonean dynasty was particularly extreme in its propensity for bloodshed. The Hasmonean kingdom became a dysfunctional state.
This reached a peak in the all-out war between King Hyrcanus II and his brother Aristobulus II, which escalated into a bloody civil war. Only the intervention of an external force, the Roman Empire, could bring it to an end.
The festival of Hanukkah commemorates the purification of the Temple, the liberation of Jerusalem and the independence of Judea, a rare historical success for the Jewish people. But what happened next?
The events that occurred in the liberated Hasmonean kingdom aren’t celebrated and few people remember them. Children in Israel sing about the miracles and wonders performed by the Maccabees but omit the crimes and injustices they committed – mainly against each other and their own people.
As 19th-century French historian Joseph Ernest Renan argued, for a national identity to be shaped, citizens must be nudged to remember certain events – and forget others. This goes for the Hasmonean kingdom as well. We have no reason to remember it in too great detail, because there’s not a lot to be proud of. This chapter of Jewish sovereignty descended into a bloodbath, which Roman general Pompey ended when he conquered Jerusalem in 63 B.C.E.
A failed nation
Still, it’s worth getting to know the story of the Hasmonean dynasty, because it has episodes that can serve as a lesson today. The Hasmoneans fought against each other with unrestrained zeal, and against the Arabs, too.
Yes, even 2,000 years ago, Arabs lived in our region, and the Jewish kings repeatedly went to war against them. Islam was still six centuries away, and Judaism was a lot different from what we know today, but yes, back then Jews and Arabs slaughtered each other. Donald Trump recently said the conflict in our region has lasted 1,000 years, but actually it’s closer to 2,000.
Occasionally the Hasmoneans would ally with one Arab king or another; for example, Hyrcanus allied with Aretas III against his brother Aristobolus, and even the Pharisees occasionally threatened to join up with the Arabs. We can assume we’ll see more of such phenomena if the modern Jewish state lasts long enough. Qatargate might well be a sign of the future.
The Hasmonean state was small and weak enough so that most historians of the time didn’t even mention it. If they had anything to say about the people of Judea, it was that they were misanthropes and zealots. The main trait of Hasmonean political culture was its mixture of the priesthood and politics.
Observers from this period were amazed by this. The consensus among the enlightened communities of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds was that the Jews were a barbaric people unfit for a state of their own.
It’s no mystery why they thought this way. Almost from the start, the Hasmonean state was a failed state; only during short stints was it a success. Still, it wouldn’t be right to say the Jews didn’t deserve their own state.
Once in a while, Israelis who think they’re being wise express skepticism about the Palestinian national project and prophesize that a new Palestinian state would immediately fall into bloody political infighting. This might happen, but it’s a bit arrogant for us to make this argument – a nation that every year celebrates the founding of a failed state whose history can be summarized as one long civil war.
Ofri Ilany is a reporter for Ha’aretz.
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