This toy engages her curiosity...
day after day.

Purchase a BRIO® MEC starter kit at
TOY WONDERS and you could win
a MEC Play Table!

Purchase starter kit by Dec. 21, 1995. Drawing 12/22/95.

It's a new toy
every day.

TM

Wet MEC

BRIO MEC is appropriate for children 3 years and up.
BRIO MEC START safely introduces children 2 and up to construction play.
©1995 BRIO* Corporation

Gift Glut

Is Chanukah gift-giving an °lc/Jewish tradition or
a commercial response to Christmas?
You be the judge.

TOY WONDERS • 14 Mile & Haggerty • Newberry Square • 810-624-4930

PORTRAIT GIFT CERTIFICATES

LOIS K. SOLOMON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

I

ast year, the Goldberg
family of Palm Beach,
Fla., reined in an out-of-
control Chanukah. No
more lavish gifts for their two
children every night for eight
nights. Parents Murray and
Debbie allowed gift exchanges
for the first and last nights only.
A third gift, chosen by the chil-
dren, was donated to charity.
"Chanukah was becoming too
Christmas-y," Mrs. Goldberg
said, "That's not what it's about."
The Goldberg children —Ash-
ley, 7, and Dustin, 5 — attend
Jewish schools. Separated from
their Christian peers, they're not
as obsessed with the material-
ism of the season as some Jew-
ish children, their mother said.
But many Jewish children,
who see Christmas decorations
in public places and listen to
their non-Jewish friends' excit-
ed talk at school, feel left out of
the seasonal festivities. To lessen
their disappointment, their par-
ents shower them with
Chanukah gifts.
Like many Jewish traditions,
the origins of Chanukah gift-giv-
ing are murky. Although most
say it is an American Jewish re-
sponse to Christmas, some ar-
gue that Chanukah has always
been a time to give presents.
Brian Glusm, a rabbi in
Philadelphia, said parents tra-

ditionally offered Chanukah pre-
sents to spread joy and hasten
the coming of the Messiah.
Chanukah gift-giving dates
back to medieval times, said
Roger Brooks, a Judaic studies
professor at Connecticut College
in New London, Conn.
"There was a tradition of
teaching Hebrew on the holiday
through the dreidel," Dr. Brooks
said. In the dreidel game, the
children bet which Hebrew let-
ter will show when the top stops
spinning.
"The tradition involved giving
gelt (money) when the child
won," Dr. Brooks said. "Then it
became, 'Here's a little bit more,
and here's some even though you
didn't win."'
After Passover and Yom Kip-
pur, Chanukah is the most wide-
ly celebrated Jewish holiday in
the United States. But Jewish
tradition declares it less impor-
tant than Shabbat, Rosh
Hashanah, Sukkot and Shavuot.
Some rabbis say gift-giving is
an exclusively American Jewish
reaction to Christmas commer-
cialism.
Rabbi Irwin Groner, of
Shaarey Zedek, does not object
to giving gifts at Chanukah.
"Traditionally at Chanukah we
give gelt and coins, even candy

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CONTEMPORARY 8c TRADITIONAL FRAMES

