According to Megillat Ta’anit, Yom Niqanor is celebrated on the 13th of Adar. Celebrated and instituted by Judah Maccabee and his followers, the day commemorates the self-sacrifice of the Maccabees in their victory over Niqanor, the Seleucid-Greek general of Antiokhus responsible for so many of the atrocities recorded in the I and II Maccabees. As Ravv Dr. Zev Farber writes, “Even though we end the story of the Maccabees with the rededication of the Temple, the story of the struggle against the Syrian-Greeks did not end there. Niqanor Day celebrates a time when the Jews stood their ground against a force that would attack them again and again. We like to imagine quick decisive victories that happen once and last into the happily ever after, but that is not how things happen in real life. Judah Maccabee had to fight his entire life, and lose it, to keep the Temple safe and the Jews free. Each time was a struggle, less dramatic than Ḥanukkah but no less significant. This is the meaning of Niqanor Day. If Ḥanukkah is the 1948 War of Independence then Niqanor Day is either the 1967 Six Day War or the 1973 Yom Kippur War—the wars where Israel had to stand its ground or risk losing it all.”