Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

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(Alma via JTA) -- Chanukah season means latkes, menorahs and the retelling of the classic story about Judah and the Maccabees. But there's a woman from a few hundred years before Judah was around who is just as important to this story.

This Chanukah, let's bring this forgotten biblical badass back into the spotlight.

She's not mentioned in the Torah. Her earliest known stories aren't even in Hebrew; they're in Greek. And she's on the fringes of medieval texts, at best. And though her story is interwoven with quite a few fictional elements, the story of Judith is too important not to cele...