A Jewish Christmas
I posted these reflections on December 25, 2021, during my involvement with the “8 Candles Sanctuary,” an interfaith group within the ServiceSpace community.
For those of us who grew up Jewish in the U.S., relating to Christmas can be complicated.
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My Great-Grandparents
For generations of Jews living in Eastern Europe, Christmas — sadly — was a time where they experienced hate and fear from Catholic priests and Christian neighbors who labeled them as “Christ killers.” And on Christmas the emotions and behaviors toward “Christ killers” could be especially strong. People could spit at Jews in public with no consequences. And the Jews would often return the favor, when no one was watching, by spitting at the local Church.
My Grandparents
When my dad was a kid in the 1920s growing up on New York’s Lower East Side, the most important task for his parents, my Grandpa Harry and Grandma Rose, other than putting bread on the table everyday, was learning how to raise their kids to be “real Americans,” so that they’d be able to get ahead and prosper here.
Christmas presented a challenge. On the one hand, they had learned from their parents that it was their sacred duty as Jews to not have anything to do with Christmas.
On the other hand, they also saw it as their sacred duty to become good Americans. And everyone knew that Christmas was one of the most high-profile American holidays. So how to distance themselves from the Christian Christmas, while participating in the “American” Christmas? Or to put it another way, how to celebrate Christmas as Jews here in America?
The answer for them — together with many other immigrant Jewish families on the Lower East Side — take the family out for a Chinese dinner and then go a movie! The Chinese immigrant families, who also were not Christian, would go to work and keep their restaurants open on Christmas. And like the Jewish families, they were not yet accepted as “real Americans,” and were struggling to offer better lives to their children. So they were natural allies.
The custom spread to Jewish communities throughout the U.S., and continues to this day — even as Wendy and I have often enjoyed a Chinese meal with Jewish friends on Christmas, followed by a good movie. 🙂
My Parents
My parents and many of their friends were the visible result of the success of their parents: affluent, living in the suburbs in homes of their own, preparing their children to enter college.
I grew up in an affluent suburban community of mostly white Protestants. There were very few Jews. My parents, Sam and Flo, held two important sets of values for themselves and their children. First, to be proud of our Jewish heritage, and celebrate it. Second, to blend in with the larger community as loyal, successful Americans.
So when December came around, we would first celebrate Hanukkah, and my brothers and I would get a present each night for eight nights. Not bad for a kid! Then when Christmas came around we would get a Christmas tree, decorate it, and put it in the window, just like all the neighbors. Only we would call it a “Hanukkah bush!” Then we kids got to hang our stockings under the tree on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas morning, like all the other kids in the neighborhood, we’d get to run downstairs with great excitement and see what presents Santa had brought for us. Wow! Not only did we get as many presents as our Christian neighbors, we got even more!
Me
The problem with my parents’ Jewish Christmas was, that by the time I was in my teens, it all seemed pretty hollow and meaningless.
My best friend in high school was Tony. My father was a Republican Conservative Jew. His was a Communist atheist Jew.
When we started school every morning Tony and I had to participate, like everyone else, in saying the (Christian) Lord’s Prayer. And as Christmas season approached, we were expected to join all the other students in singing Christmas carols at assemblies.
During our Junior year, we decided that we’d had enough. We no longer wanted to participate in these activities that didn’t reflect who we were. So we began sitting silently during the Lords Prayer, and during Christmas carols. For a while no one bothered us, and everything seemed okay.
But things came to a head at the French Club Christmas Party. Our French teacher, a crusty middle-aged woman who had grown up in Nazi Germany and came to the U.S. after the War, would often remind us how disciplined and obedient teenagers were in Germany when she was our age. She required that all French students, if we wanted to pass her class and graduate high school, had to attend her Christmas party. Tony and I weren’t thrilled about this, but we didn’t see any alternative, so we reluctantly showed up.
Somehow we wound up sitting in the front row as the teacher sat down at the piano, sang French Christmas carols, and accompanied herself. And she had made it clear that she expected us to sing along with her, in a good French accent. For Tony and me this was too much. We burst out laughing.
The teacher banged on the piano, stopped the music, and turned around with flames coming out of her nostrils. “Human scum! Human scum!” she screamed. “Out! Out of my class!”
Tony and I grabbed our stuff and ran, laughing all the way. We wound up downstairs, in the men’s locker room, drawing graffiti on the walls that were not very flattering to the French teacher.
Soon the gym teacher came along. “What’s this, men?” he asked. When we finally explained, he insisted on marching us upstairs and watching as we apologized to the French teacher.
“We’re sorry for writing graffiti that disrespected you,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Tony, “and we’re sorry we called you a Nazi bitch.”
The good news — somehow we made it through high school.
Years later when I was living in San Francisco at the House of Love and Prayer, saying the traditional Hebrew prayers three times a day, I came to appreciate the human universality of the longing to connect with the Infinite. Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, Sufis and Sikhs would come visit, and we’d all pray together.
My teacher Reb Shlomo said, “we’re all on the same path; we’re just wearing different shoes.” There was no problem of a Jewish Christmas, any more than of a Christian Hanukah. As Reb Zalman and Matthew Fox together taught, “deep ecumenism” is about each of us learning more about our own spiritual journeys, thru the depth of experiencing something of each others’.
Father John
Fast forward a few decades, and it’s Christmas Eve in Half Moon Bay. My friends Richard and Martha, devout Catholics, invited me to join them for Midnight Mass at their church. As a Jew, I had never been to a Catholic mass before and I didn’t know if it would be right for me to be there. But it was a sacred event that they were inviting me to, and they were good friends and I trusted them, so I said sure.
When we got to the Church, Richard and Martha introduced me to Father John, the priest who would be conducting the Mass. He welcomed me very courteously and made me feel at home. But that was nothing compared to what was to come.
The Mass began, and I was surprised to notice how closely it seemed to track with the traditional Hebrew prayers. I recognized some of the same Psalms, in the same order.
But then it came time for Holy Communion. I knew that as a non-Catholic I could not be included, and would have to sit this one out, while everyone else went up for Communion. Father John picked up the wine cup and said the prayer in Latin. Then, looking into the crowd of worshipers, straight at me, he repeated the blessing, this time in Hebrew.
No one else in the church may have understood what he was saying or doing, but I did. He was recognizing my presence, and honoring me me by including me. It was an act of courtesy that I’ll never forget, a special Jewish Christmas!
Father John and I became friends after that, and would sometimes go up to San Francisco together to go to the movies.
Jesus
Based on recent writings by both Christian and Jewish scholars, I have come to a deeper appreciation of Jesus. Of how Jesus can be seen historically as a radically creative first century rabbi who in his day was teaching Torah — in new ways — to Jews. And how the core values of Torah — love God, love your neighbor, love the stranger — can be brought to everyone.
So a Christmas question that this Jew is holding now: how do I want to relate to Rabbi Jesus?
A Jewish Christmas Now
So this year I’m grateful to my friends in the the Eight Candles Cathedral for holding a “place” where I can celebrate Christmas. And to friends in the greater ServiceSpace community, in the Torah Circle, OWL, and communities everywhere, who are committed to the reality that, in Reb Zalman’s words: “the only way we’re going to get it together, is together.” And I look forward to the new ways of celebrating Christmas, and all of our traditions, that are emerging.
Two Jewish Christmas Stories
by Daniel Tov Howard
One
Dad’s out in the garage again, working with his electric jig saw. What’s he up to now? Always hiding out back there in his dusty sanctuary, the musty refuge of useless treasures that he finds impossible to give or throw away.
Now he invites me back to the workbench to help. Why it’s a mogen dovid – the neighbors call it a Jewish star – cut out of plywood, with a fresh coat of dark blue enamel. It’s wired with six blue bulbs at each of the six points, with three white bulbs in the middle.
“We’re going to hang it outside,” he says, “to tell the world that we’re a Jewish family, and that we celebrate Chanukah.”
“But Dad,” I say, “everyone else in the neighborhood has Christmas lights and Frosty the Snowman and reindeer and Santa and a manger. Our star is really going to stand out.”
“I know, son, I know. Now help me with this ladder.”
Two
“Mom, Mom, we’re all singing ‘Silent Night’ and ‘The First Noel’ for the special holiday program at school,” I said excitedly. “All the parents are invited. Will you come?”
It’s the third day of Chanukah, 1952. Hula Hoops; I Like Ike; Marilyn and Joltin’ Joe; Korea; Patti Page and How Much is that Doggie in the Window.
“What? You’re singing what?” My mother is incredulous. I calmly repeat the song selections. She is livid.
“Oh, really?” she says with that look in her eye. “We’ll see about that.”
The next day she drops me off at Fairburn Avenue Elementary but then parks the Chevy station wagon and walks right in to the principal’s office. I can’t believe it. What is she doing! The next thing I know, she’s suggesting – no demanding – that, in her words, the children sing more appropriate songs for a public school presentation.
Principal Campbell, a graying fifty-ish man in a proper ash gray sharkskin suit, takes a deep breath and musters his most resourceful arsenal of reassuring tones and diplomatic aplomb.
“Mrs. Howard,” he begins slowly, “please understand. This is certainly not a religious program. Christmas, after all, is not a religious holiday – it’s an American holiday.” Mr. Campbell pauses, measuring each word. “We all enjoy Christmas songs – why they’re part of our national heritage for everyone.”
Needless to say, this tack doesn’t wash very well with my mother. “Well, Mr. Campbell, it’s not my heritage. You see, our family is Jewish. And there are children of many other faiths here at Fairburn who also may not observe Christmas.”
The battle continued behind closed doors for a long time with no discernible victor. In any case, I had to get to my fourth grade classroom and couldn’t hang out in the hall any longer.
I had mixed feelings about all of this: pride in my mother’s convictions, embarrassment about the confrontation, shame at my own embarrassment, and a delicious thrill that my Mom was single-handedly taking on Old Man Campbell and the entire Western World.
I’ll never know what went on in that office, but three days later at Time for Music with Miss Smithers we began rehearsing O Chanukah and I Have a Little Dreidel.
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Two great Jewish Christmas stories Daniel — thank you!!
Shalom Dear Brother,
Your question about Jews on Christmas gave me an opportunity to remember some of my experience as a Christmas Jew, or as I often thought, my version of a Shabbos Goy.
This morning, under the subject line: “The Suit in my closet is beckoning to me”, I sent out the following email:
Hi neighbors,
Santa will be in Derby Creek in the morning and is able to visit four or five homes on Christmas morning between 10 and 12 on a stop on the way to the North Pole.
If you would like Santa to visit your home, please text me at 510 551-8422 and I’ll let Santa know.
Love and blessings,
Barry, Santa’s Jewish Assistant
For seventeen years when Debby and I had the privilege of stewarding the Live Oak Living Center, I donned the suit each Christmas. Each year we would invite family members, some of whom were in their seventies with no other place to go, for Christmas lunch. Afterwards, we would go to the front of the home for the annual Christmas party, which I would MC. The ritual went like this: I would keep asking: “Is he here? Has anyone seen him?” Finally, I would say I’ll go out and look for him. A few minutes later, the front door would open and Santa would enter, and would shout some jolly “Ho, ho, ho’s” and explain that it was his last stop before going home to Mrs. Claus in the North Pole, but he wanted to give out gifts to each resident and to the children of staff member, who were Indian and Pakistani and Afro American, Hispanic, Chinese, Iranian, and native born Caucasian American. (Debby and I were the only Jews.) Then with a joyful, “Ho, ho, ho,” he would depart out the door on the way to the North Pole and Mrs. Claus. A few minutes later, I would come in asking if anyone had seen him yet. The kids would all shout out, “that’s you. You’re Santa.”
The night before Christmas, I would come to the home and facilitate a community meeting, interspersing residents’ memories of Christmas with a sing along with the Mormon tabernacle choir on the big screen tv. Then I would pass out eggnog and brandy and Christmas cookies and go out to the rooms of folks who were in bed and pass out brandy and eggnog and cookies and wish folks a Merry Christmas.
One year, when Christmas and Shabbos coincided. I was just about to leave the Living Center to go home to greet the Queen before going back for our Christmas eve ritual, when the woman who did laundry came into the office and announced one of our two 75 lb. commercial washers was down and of course this being Christmas eve we couldn’t find a repair person. I couldn’t bear the thought of our day shift coming in on Christmas morning with insufficient clean linens, so I loaded up my station wagon with plastic bags filled with soiled bed clothes and KJ, our administrator, and I drove around looking for an open laundromat and we did laundry until it was time to go back to the home for our Christmas eve ritual. Early on Shabbos morning I got up and went to the home where we loaded the car with bags of smelly laundry and again drove around looking for an open laundromat. I wish I could say I davvenned as I did the laundry, but I wasn’t that high. We finished just in time for me to get back to the home to host Christmas lunch and then for me to give my body over to Santa. Thankfully, we were able to find a technician to come in and repair the big washing machine on Christmas afternoon.
Was this very unorthodox Jewish Christmas an avaerah or a mitzvah? I’ll probably never know.
The attached photo is of Santa returning from visiting neighbors last year.
I bless you and Wendy with a year of good health, joy and the actualization of your highest aspirations for peace and healing in the world.
Love and blessing, Barry
Wow — what a mitzvah!
Wow — what a mitzvah!
Although I lived in a mostly Jewish Long Island suburb, I went to a private elementary school and was one of the few Jewish students. I sang hymns and Christmas carols. I love the music and to this day listen to carols on the classical radio station this time of year.. My parents told me that I wanted to be Mary in the school Christmas parent but had to settle for being an angel! Although we celebrated Chanukah, I have fond memories of our Christmas tree, especially the wonderful fir smell. Christmas, to me, was a chance to be part of the collective.
In college, one Christmas Eve I went to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City to experience midnight mass. While I was waiting in line in the freezing cold weather, I confessed to the woman in front of me that I was Jewish. She said she was too.
Currently, my local Threshold Choir goes to nursing homes in Half Moon Bay to sing carols for the elders. My experiences in elementary school have prepared me to be able to sing the songs the residents request. I also treat myself to a gourmet candy cane. Like Chanukah, Christmas is a celebration of light in the darkness so each year I enjoy looking at the lights on the homes of our neighbors. Last night on Christmas Eve, we took a walk in the neighborhood and took in the festive lights in the dark and quiet night.
Thank you Wendy. Your Jewish Christmas enriches mine.
I love your Jewish Christmas stories Aryae, and your interfaith connections. As a youngster, we were in a predominately non-jewish area of Chicago and most of us congregated at the local Chinese restaurant. We moved to a more Jewish suburb when we had children, and the kids commented how dark the front yards were during the Christmas Holidays compared to other their friend’s neighborhoods.
For the past 30 years or so, I have gladly worked Christmas in the hospital as a doctor covering our group, letting my Christian colleagues have the time off with their families for which they were very grateful. The problem now is our group is getting dominated by Jews, so it’s easy to cover Christmas and Easter, and more difficult to cover the multitude of Jewish Holidays.
Praying with you that 2024 will bring more peace and love to the world!
Baruch Ben Tzvi
Thank you Baruch! What a joy to witness your 30-year Jewish Christmas mitzvah! And yes, may HaShem bless us all with more love and peace in 2024.
A Jewish Christmas, December 25, 2023
Reb Zalman taught us that while we’re saying the Amidah in our morning davening, we can add a blessing for our personal prayers to G-d. Here’s the prayer that came to me this morning:
“Please bless my Christian friends and neighbors who are seeking to connect with you on this most sacred of their days, with a day of joy, where they can experience the blessing of being a channel for bringing Your light and love into the world.”
May it be so.
i have a new Chanukah at Christmas time question. This am, Dec. 24th I got a message from a Jewish friend. She wanted to know what she should tell her daughter in law or say nothing.re: the situation I will describe here. Some background: Her son and his wife live in a Boston suburb. . Their son like his parents doesn’t go to “Temple” and no Jewish activity. . Although he accompanied his Grandma on her 1st trip to Israel when she was 90 yrs old. His wife, is Catholic. Doesn’t go to Church even though she did while growing up. She has a Christmas tree in their family room. The kids were brought up with Christmas as a cultural holiday. They didn’t go to Church. The Mom places a Menorah in her dining room. when she decorates her tree. Her late in laws lived in L.A. Every Dec. in time for Chanukah , my friend’s husband’s Aunt, sent each of the grandchildren a box with eight presents, one for each night of Chanukah. The children were given a present each night of Chanukah. This am , my friend got a message from her daughter in law. “Tonight we will light the Menorah, say a prayer and give our adult children some gifts and play some games. Tomorrow we will celebrate Christmas and open presents under the tree. Should my friend tell her daughter in law what I would say: Chanukah ended 10 days ago. and not to light the candles on the Menorah now. However, lighting candles is lovely, but not for Chanukah. What would be your response?
Thanks Susie. An interesting question. My take, for what it’s worth, would be to not try to correct the daughter-in-law at this time. She has taken a baby step to help her kids receive the Jewish part of their cultural heritage. Praise her for that. And maybe at some point, praise her again and say she could make it even more special next hear by lighting the menorah during the actual eight days of the holiday.
Probably nothing, dear friend.
My life growing up in Christian neighborhoods in Brooklyn. So many friends went to Catholic School and we got along mostly pretty well. Nevertheless the thought of me being the Jew amongst them was definitely a feeling that was reinforced by my Christian Neighbors realizing that I was a Jew in their neighborhood. It’s enticing to consider the little incidences that I had, occasionally aggressive, mostly cordial and writing to this blog Consider this an introduction, thank you.
Thanks Steven. I can relate to the experience of growing up Jewish in a Christian neighborhood. What I learned was to be bi-cultural — to have one persona with my Jewish friends, and a slightly different persona with my Christian friends. It took me a while to figure out that I had developed that skill.
I think we all have different personas. I relate, of course, to progressive Methodists, but I am still part Quaker, drawn to Buddhism and Judaism.