The Eleventh Horn: The First Book in The Maccabee Series
In the first novel of the series, Judah experiences many of the troubles that have plagued youth both in ancient and modern times.
He chafes against study and work and enjoys only the violence of sport, especially swordplay and wrestling.
He also dreads his impending arranged marriage to Miriam, the village harpy and is torn between the seductive beliefs of Alexander's Greek world and the rigid practices of his Hebrew culture.
His father, Mattathias, a peaceful high priest, at first is ambivalent regarding his son's warlike tendencies, but ends up encouraging them, because he sees the need for a defense against the hardened Greek emperor Antiochus, who mercilessly tortures the Jews in his Judean kingdom to assimilate them.
In a famous set-piece of history, Mattathias provokes the Greeks by refusing to defile the altar of his synagogue when they insist on a swine sacrifice, proving that he and his fellow Jews in their little village of Modiin are willing to die rather than subject themselves to Greek rule.
Judah convinces them to fight rather than accept death and, rallying his village and the surrounding towns near the hills of Gophna in the ancient kingdom of Judea, he becomes the heart of the resistance against the Greeks.
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