Christmukkah of the Heart?
Yaelle Frohlich
Issue date: 12/21/09 Section: Opinion
With a burst of candlelight, chocolate coins and Menorah and mistletoe decorations sharing the window of the 35th Street and 3rd Avenue D'Agostino store, another Hanukkah has passed. Everyone knows it, too; one of the mitzvoth of Hanukkah is advertising the Hanukkah miracle-the alleged triumph of a tiny jar of pure olive oil fueling the Second Temple's menorah for eight whole days, following an unlikely Maccabee victory over the Greek army and Jewish Hellenists.
That Jews are still telling the story, lighting the lights and frying the donuts after 2,000 years is a Hanukkah miracle in its own right. At the very least, it's a modest victory for rabbinic Judaism and an irony of history; Hanukkah, one of two non-biblical holidays, is possibly the most well known Jewish holiday among Jews and non-Jews alike. Even though Hanukkah's story of origin-found in the books of Judith and Maccabees I and II-is relegated to the Apocrypha and the sages instituted its every dictum, it remains the most visible Jewish holiday in the media and popular culture.
It always strikes interests me how Hanukkah and Christmas celebrants pull out their egalitarian caps in late November. Judaism and Christianity may proscribe belief in the other, but in New York's shop windows there does seem to be such thing as a Judeo-Christian tradition. On the Saturday evening this month that happened to be the second night of Hanukkah, a friend and I walked into to the 36th Street dorm. As we stepped over the threshold, five 20-something-year-old Santa Clauses (4 guys and girl) that had been walking behind us, at seeing the lit candles through the dorm's window, good-naturedly called "Happy Hanukkah" after us.
And Jews, for their part, are far from oblivious of the Christmas season. I wouldn't be surprised if the average Orthodox American Jew has at some point watched a "Saturday Night Live" Christmas special, gotten the warm fuzzies from "Home Alone" or even stopped to take in a neon reindeer lawn decoration. It's hard to go psychologically unaffected by the culture around us.
That Jews are still telling the story, lighting the lights and frying the donuts after 2,000 years is a Hanukkah miracle in its own right. At the very least, it's a modest victory for rabbinic Judaism and an irony of history; Hanukkah, one of two non-biblical holidays, is possibly the most well known Jewish holiday among Jews and non-Jews alike. Even though Hanukkah's story of origin-found in the books of Judith and Maccabees I and II-is relegated to the Apocrypha and the sages instituted its every dictum, it remains the most visible Jewish holiday in the media and popular culture.
It always strikes interests me how Hanukkah and Christmas celebrants pull out their egalitarian caps in late November. Judaism and Christianity may proscribe belief in the other, but in New York's shop windows there does seem to be such thing as a Judeo-Christian tradition. On the Saturday evening this month that happened to be the second night of Hanukkah, a friend and I walked into to the 36th Street dorm. As we stepped over the threshold, five 20-something-year-old Santa Clauses (4 guys and girl) that had been walking behind us, at seeing the lit candles through the dorm's window, good-naturedly called "Happy Hanukkah" after us.
And Jews, for their part, are far from oblivious of the Christmas season. I wouldn't be surprised if the average Orthodox American Jew has at some point watched a "Saturday Night Live" Christmas special, gotten the warm fuzzies from "Home Alone" or even stopped to take in a neon reindeer lawn decoration. It's hard to go psychologically unaffected by the culture around us.
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