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Menorahs & Mistletoe For This Meshuggenah Time of the Year By Lynn Wexler-Margolies
’Twas the night before Chanukah … I was chasing a mouse, While Mama made latkes, and the smell filled the house. Papa placed a menorah on the mantel with care, In hopes that Saint Nicholstein soon would be there. My siblings all snug, as they slept in their beds, While pictures of dreidels danced in their heads. Dressed in his robe and a red woven yarmulke, I sat by my Zeide, reading stories of Chanukah. Then a thump from above woke my Bubbe Leora, Reindeer on the roof? Are they dancing the hora? I ran to assess what the mishigas could be, And found in the garden a lit Christmas tree! It shimmered in colors red, green, blue and white, A six-pointed star sat atop, tilting right. There at the base lay gifts wrapped in clear foil, Chocolate gelt … painted dreidels … a menorah with oil. Up on the roof, Ho Ho Ho I could hear, Saint Nicholstein holding the reins of his deer. He then gave a shout as his sleigh bounded home… Happy Holidays to all, and to all a Shalom.
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umorous, but presents a dilemma … and an increasingly common one at that. Menorahs and trees, dreidels and ornaments, Santas and Macabees … all symbols of the holiday season that, for an interfaith family, pose the so-called December Dilemma. For many of these families, the cultural, and in some cases theological, lines between religious observances and traditions during the holidays become uncomfortable and even confused. According to the North American Jewish Data Bank, there are upwards of 6 million Jews in America. In a survey taken by the United Jewish Communities, 35 percent of American Jewish families are interfaith, up from 28 percent in 1990, with more than 50 percent of American Jews today marrying non-Jews. Interfaith marriages are a reality, and the need to address the December Dilemma is as prominent as ever. For interfaith couples involving a Jew and any non-Jew who celebrates Christmas, the December holidays are a yearly reminder that they don’t share the same religious, ethnic or cultural background. Strong childhood memories can pull interfaith couples in opposite directions. The Jewish partner who participates in Christmas, often feels that they have betrayed their heritage by having a decorated evergreen in their home, and a jolly old man sliding down the fireplace. By contrast, the non-Jewish partner, who yearns to share the pervasive festivities of the Christmas season, feels a painful loss when met with resistance to Christmas observance. More than any other time of year, emotional tugs are at an alltime high, leaving interfaith couples to wrestle with what to do during the December holidays, forcing religious and cultural differences to the fore. What ought to be a time of joy and celebration with family and friends instead becomes a time of crisis and tensions. John C. Hawxhurst, editor of Dovetail, a national interfaith newsletter, found that an estimated 750,000 interfaith families in the U.S. face this difficulty each year. “How can we balance our celebrations of Christmas and Chanukah, and at the same time remember the true significance of these two distinct and wonderful holidays? Do we wrap presents in Chanukah or Christmas paper? With which extended families should we celebrate? How do we explain all this to the children?” Younger, newly married couples more easily laugh off these tensions. When children enter the picture, however, these issues cannot be avoided. “Youngsters often get right to the heart of the holiday matter … Are we Jewish or Christian?” says Hawxhurst. “Even when an interfaith couple is living an almost exclusively Jewish life, when the non-Jewish spouse wants a Christmas tree, the trouble can begin,” said Renee Karp, a teacher at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas, where interfaith couples make up 15-20 percent of the congregation’s 2,600 families. “It’s a big issue,” she said. Jane Kaplan, author of Interfaith Families, found that “Jews
are particularly concerned that interfaith holiday celebrations undermine traditional Jewish observance, and the Christmas tree is an especially sore subject. It seems to epitomize Christianity. It doesn’t seem to be nearly as big a deal for Christians to participate in Chanukah, or put a menorah in the window,” she said. While the Christmas tree, and the holiday celebrating the birth of Christ seem inextricably linked, the modern Christmas tree tradition dates back to western Germany in the 16th century. They were called Paradeisbaum or paradise trees, and were brought into homes to celebrate the annual Feast of Adam and Eve on the 24th of December. Apples were thus the customary ornament. German immigrants brought this tradition to America in the late 1600s. It wasn’t until 1850 that the tree became popular among the general U.S. population as a decorative item for the Christmas holiday. Another Christmas icon, Santa Klaus, dates back to a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop, Saint Nicholas of Myra (in today’s Turkey), who was famous for his generous gifts to the poor. He died on Dec. 6 and was celebrated each year by parents who rewarded their children with a small gift if their behavior modeled the saint’s. By the 1660s the Dutch called him Sinterklass. In 1821, he was given the name Sante Claus, in a book titled Children’s Friend by an anonymous author, in which he arrived as a jolly elf from the North in a sleigh with a flying reindeer, marking his first appearance on Christmas Eve rather than Dec. 6. The jolly elf received another boost in 1823, from a poem destined to become immensely popular, A Visit from St. Nicholas, now familiar as The Night Before Christmas. Rabbi Sam Gordon of Sukkat Shalom Synagogue in Chicago agrees that Christmas is more emotionally loaded for Jews than Chanukah is for Christians. “Chanukah’s message of freedom is universal and easily accepted by all,” he said. The name Chanukah derives from the Hebrew verb to dedicate. On Chanukah, the Jews regained control of Jerusalem from the Seleucid Empire, rededicated the Temple, and reclaimed the Temple menorah. Because the small amount of oil they found to light the menorah burned for eight nights, Chanukah is also called the Festival or Miracle of Lights. Dr. Dianne Ashton, author of The American Chanukah, explains that the trend of giving gifts on Chanukah originated in the 1950s. Jewish child psychologists, as well as rabbis, started promoting gifts as a way to make post-Holocaust Jewish children happy to be Jewish, rather than sad about missing out on Christmas. In his book Holidays, History and Halakhah, Eliezer Segal contends the earliest sources to mention the giving of gelt on Chanukah are about students in Europe presenting it to their teachers to say thank you. “Christmas, on the other hand, celebrates the birth of Christ, believed to be the son of God by Christians, and is the most familyoriented of Christian holidays,” Gordon continued. “Holiday memories consist of family gatherings in warm and beautiful DECEMBER 2011 DAVID
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settings, attending church, exchanging gifts in remembrance of those given the infant Jesus by the Three Wise Men, and singing magnificent songs. For this reason, many Jews find it difficult to tolerate Christmas symbols of any kind.” That beautiful Christmas music, it should be noted, was written by none other than talented Jewish songwriters and lyricists. “Winter Wonderland,” “The Christmas Song,” “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and more, written by such music greats as Irving Berlin, Sammy Cahn, Mel Torme, Johnny Marks, Felix Bernard, Mitchell Paris, Bob Wells, George Wyles … well, the list is just too long. It begs the question, though: Why were so many Christmas classics written by Jews? InterFaithFamily.com contributor Nate Bloom suggests it dates back to the Middle Ages and the early modern period, where music was one of the relatively few fields where European Jews could make a living. Medieval and early modern Jewish musicians entertained Jews and non-Jews. “They even enjoyed a certain degree of admiration for their skill among the non-Jewish population,” Bloom states. Starting in the 1880s, millions of European Jews, seeking relief from religious persecution and economic deprivation, poured into America’s teeming cities. The American Jewish population grew from an estimated 200,000 in 1870 to around 3.5 million by 1920. A huge market for popular music developed in America after that, coinciding with the mass production of pianos, the phonograph, radio, talking pictures, vaudeville and Broadway musical theater. “American Jews dove into American popular music. I think the main reason that Jewish songwriters wrote and still write Christmas or holiday songs was and is commercial. A hit Christmas song meant a lot of sales,” concluded Bloom. Elliot and Jennifer Weller live in Las Vegas with their children, Noah, 13, Hannah, 11, and Asher, 7 — good Jewish names considering Jennifer was raised Mormon and has not converted to Judaism. But Elliot, who is Jewish, and Jennifer went to an interfaith havurah for a year before they married, to be sure they could make it work. They also agreed that the children would be raised Jewish and attend Jewish day schools. Elliot’s mother was skeptical until she saw that they kept their word on raising the children Jewish. Jennifer’s parents were accepting from the start. For the first five or so years, though, Elliot was uncomfortable with the idea of that tree in his home, which Jennifer on the other hand dearly missed. But they solved that too by spending the Christmas holidays with her family. Elliot has since come ‘round, and their home now embraces symbols and traditions from both religions. And their children? All three say they are clear on being Jewish, and they even view their mother as Jewish. “My mother is Jewish in her 56
heart and that’s what matters,” said Hannah. All three would like to marry within the faith someday, but “I would always include a Christmas tree, as it connects me to my memories and, of course, my mother’s side of the family,” said Noah. I asked them which holiday was more fun to celebrate. All three slowly responded, “Well, Christmas, sort of, only because of the large family gatherings on my mom’s side with food, fun and lots of presents!” said Asher. “You don’t always choose who you fall in love with,” said Frank Williams, an ordained Methodist minister in Las Vegas. “Interfaith marriages are on the rise across all faiths because we are less dogmatic within our faith traditions these days, and society is more pluralistic.” And while no Orthodox Jewish congregations, and few Conservative ones embrace intermarriages, the Reform and Reconstructionist branches of Judaism have sought to reach out to those couples and families in the communities where they live. Interfaith Families’ Jane Kaplan suggests … 1. Remember that it’s OK to participate in the holiday as a way to respect your spouse and extended family. 2. Help children understand they can enjoy Christmas and Chanukah activities without betraying either parent or their religious upbringing. Use the holidays to reinforce their religious identity. 3. Don’t set it up so that the holidays are in competition. Christmas is clearly bigger, but Chanukah offers eight wonderful days of celebration, stories and the tradition of doughnuts and latkes! 4. Rather than asking in-laws to give Christmas or Chanukah presents, ask them to give gifts wrapped in paper indicating the holiday the children do celebrate. 5. If your children want a Christmas tree in your home, sit down with your partner and discuss what the holiday means to each of you. Be clear about underlying issues. Is it your own reluctance to have a tree or menorah in your home, or is it the fear of how relatives might react? 6. Giving in on a holiday becomes less significant if you remember that the main concern is to know how your family will live religiously throughout the year, not just in December. 7. Allow your initial decisions to change as your family evolves. Certain things that may have seemed important at one stage in your marriage may become less important later on. 8. Develop traditions together. Denying a need will breed resentment, but negotiating a mutually acceptable way to celebrate will strengthen the relationship and unify the family. While there is no silver bullet to solving the December Dilemma, since there are as many differing circumstances as there are interfaith marriages, families can start by seeking the advice of experts. Or, if possible, why not plan in advance as the Wellers did, leaving little to surprise? That way you entitle yourself and your potential mate to the opportunity to learn whether the interfaith challenge is for you.
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