Violence at the Temple on Sukkot

As for Alexander, his own people were in sedition against him. For during the celebration of a festival, when he stood at the altar and was about to offer sacrifice, the people rose up against him and began pelting him with citrons, since there was a law among the Jews that at the Festival of Tabernacles everyone should be holding branches of the palm tree and citron tree, as we have explained elsewhere. And they reviled him as one descended from captives, unworthy both of his office and of offering sacrifice. Infuriated by these things, he slew about six thousand of them, and he built a wooden partition wall around the altar and Temple as far as the copestone, through which it is only lawful for the priests to enter. In this way he obstructed the masses’ means of access to him.