Satirist Alan King once famously remarked that the story behind every Jewish holiday can be summarized as “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.” But that template doesn’t do justice to Hanukkah—which marks the period during the 2nd Century B.C when Jewish guerrillas, led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and then his son Judah Maccabee, rose up successfully against the Seleucid Empire (and its Hellenized Jewish supporters). This was a successful Jewish military campaign, not the usual passive attempt to survive external aggression.

Judah’s men were not gentle souls. At Hanukkah, we linger on the reportedly miraculous way in which a small supply of sacred oil lasted for eight days during the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. But the fanatics who launched this campaign were more concerned with smashing idols, forcibly circumcising children, and slaughtering Seleucid troops. (The war ended in 160 BC, after the Jews forged an alliance with Rome, and the Seleucids eventually gave in to the Maccabees’ demands for increased religious freedom.)

Unlike Passover, which is centered on the detailed recitation of a complex narrative, Hanukkah usually goes light on history’s cut and thrust. When I was a child at Jewish elementary school, the main points of focus were the heroism of Judah’s plucky fighters, and the miraculous temple story, which we all understood to be a metaphor for the Maccabees’ unlikely triumph. While this educational tradition comes with a shaky pedigree (the miracle of the burning oil didn’t appear in historical sources till the compilation of the Talmud, centuries later), it now is firmly embedded in Jewish culture. To this day, the holiday marks the time when many believers contemplate the miraculous nature of God’s presence in Jewish lore.