died 161/160 BC
Leader of a Jewish rebellion against the Syrians.
The son of an aged priest who took to the mountains in rebellion when Jerusalem , an event celebrated at Hanukkah . On Antiochus's death in 164, the Seleucids offered the Jews freedom of worship, but Judas continued the war, hoping to gain political freedom. He was killed soon thereafter, but his brothers carried on the struggle. The history of the dynasty is told in the two books of Maccabees in the Apocrypha .