Jury splits over Maccabees’ fate at mock trial – Cleveland Jewish News

The Maccabees were brought to justice in a Cleveland courtroom on March 25, more than 2,000 years after killing two people, one Jew and one Syrian Greek officer.

At least thats what The People vs. the Maccabees would have one believe during Kol HaLevs humorous mock trial at Cleveland State Universitys Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

About 140 people watched as Lee Fisher, interim dean and visiting professor of law at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, played defense for the historical Maccabees to the prosecution of Steven M. Dettelbach, BakerHostetler partner and former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. Kol HaLev, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Pepper Pike, presents the annual event and the Cleveland Jewish News was a sponsor.

In the case based on historical events around 167 BCE, the Maccabees, led by Mattathias, were charged for killing a Syrian Greek officer of a government that oppressed the Jewish people and a Jew who obeyed his order. The trial was over whether Mattathias was guilty of both murders.

"Every life is sacred in our tradition and every life is sacred in our law, Dettelbach said, arguing the Syrian Greek was just a messenger for the repressive regime and the Jew who was killed was innocent and undeserving of death. Under our law you don't get to kill the wrong people because you have a grievance with somebody else. That's what the evidence shows that Mattathias did that day."

Fisher argued the Jewish peoples oppression made it a time of war, and thus Mattathias was innocent in the cases of both deaths.

"(The Syrian Greek victim) was far more than just a messenger ... it was a time of war not peace," said Fisher, who is a former Ohio Lieutenant Governor and Ohio Attorney General. "Jews were treated as if they were below the law during this time."

After the audience, which was also the jury, heard arguments from both sides, an interfaith panel discussed the relevance of the Maccabees case to todays world. Panelist Rabbi Steve Segar, rabbi at Kol HaLev, said there is still a divide among Jews about governance today.

In terms of the ways in which Jews are interfacing with our government of our larger society the American government I think there are a couple of significant examples of this in our contemporary period,"Segar said, citing Jewish divide on U.S. and Israeli relations and the extent to which the U.S. president works to combat anti-Semitism as some such issues.

Panelist Sr. Lisa Marie Belz, department chair for religious studies/graduate ministry at Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, cited for Jews, the pressure on the Maccabees to assimilate in Greece is paralleled by later crises, particularly the Holocaust, where Jews faced potential loss of identity.

"If you assimilate you give up Torah," Belz said, at which point the moderator, the Rev. Leah C.K. Lewis, interjected that as an African-American, a group of people who was forced to lose their African cultural and religious identities, there is great pain experienced with such loss.

"I am in envy of the Jewish tradition and the ways in which you have been able to maintain theessence of your tradition and your faith throughout centuries of oppression, Lewis said. African-Americans have not been as fortunate.

Moreover, panelist Imam Ramez Islambouli, professor of Islamic law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, argued the Maccabees story is relevant because religious extremists still try to speak and act on behalf of God.

"Even if your identity is challenged, you cannot murder," he said.

Presiding over the case was Judge Dick Ambrose, of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, who kept order in the courtroom and instructed the jury to vote the defendant guilty or not guilty on charges for each killing.

The audiences verdict?

Mattathias was guilty for the murder of the Jew, but not guilty for the death of the Syrian Greek officer.

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Jury splits over Maccabees' fate at mock trial - Cleveland Jewish News