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Chrisukah 2000
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A family's perspective on how lathe oil
doesn't mix with the wreaths of Christmas.
BY JANE ULMAN
1111
1 elcome to Chrisukah
2000, a mix-and-
match, one size fits
all, generic, all-inclu-
sive holiday season.
Where you can buy a blue-and-
white, dreidel-decorated Chanukah
wreath or send an electronic interfaith
card featuring a Santa Claus and an
observant Jew sledding downhill over
a "Happy Whichever!" greeting.
"It's sacrilegious," Gabe, 13, says.
"No, it's an attempt to make
money, to appeal to everyone,"
explains Zack, 16. "It's what America
is all about."
Increasingly, our country's entre-
preneurs are cashing in on the grow-
ing number of interfaith families,
with estimates of more than 50 per-
cent of all Jews marrying outside the
faith, and there are a growing number
of unaffiliated and secular Jews who
often view Christmas as a national
holiday with little or no religious sig-
nificance.
"I find this mingling of holidays
odd," says my friend Ruth Ickowitz, a
Christian married to a Jew, commit-
ted to raising her children Jewish.
It's indeed odd. And ironic, since
Chanukah is the holiday in which we
Jews specifically commemorate our
refusal to assimilate.
"Most of these people, those creat-
ing these decorations and those buy-
ing them, must have no clue what
either holiday really means," Ruth
surmises.
No clue. Because aside from the
fact that both Chanukah and
Christmas likely originated from some
winter solstice holiday, they have
nothing in common. Christmas cele-
brates the birth of Jesus, the Christian
messiah, while we Jews believe that
the Messiah has not yet come.
No clue. Because the Christmas
symbols that so many Jews willingly
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usurp or meld into a uni-holiday
hybridization are the very symbols
that have been used to tyrannize and
persecute us for thousands of years.
Take the Christmas tree, for
example, which many Jews insensi-
tively co-opt, sometimes incongru-
ously calling it a Chanukah bush. As
an evergreen, the tree symbolizes
Jesus' immortality, depicting him as
the "tree of life." It is also a
reminder of the wood used for the
cross on which he was crucified (and
on which, according to some
sources, we symbolically and igno-
rantly "knock on wood").
How about the Christmas wreath,
available now in a Chanukah motif?
The wreath symbolizes the crown of
thorns placed on Jesus' head by the
Roman soldiers before he was crucified.
It signifies his pain and suffering, the
red berries representing drops of blood.
"I wouldn't mind if the holiday
decorations were side by side," I
answer, explaining my support of the
seemingly politically incorrect but
historically accurate doctrine of "sepa-
rate and unequal."
Yes, unequal since Chanukah is a
minor holiday not only on the Jewish
calendar but also in comparison to
Christmas, as Ron Wolfson, professor at
the University of Judaism in Los
Angeles, says: "It is not a major event in
the Jewish holiday cycle and has never,
until recently, been viewed as a central
celebration for the Jewish people.
As Jews, we don't have to ignore
Christmas. On the contrary. My hus-
band, Larry, and I will drive our sons
down Los Angeles' Candy Cane Lane
to view the annual award-winning
Christmas decorations. We will give
Christmas presents to our Christian
friends. We will invariably and repeat-
edly say, "Christmas is a beautiful
holiday. But it's not our holiday."
But more importantly, at sundown
on Dec. 21, amid family and friends,
we will celebrate our holiday. (JTA)
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to give is as easy as ordering a
Jewish News subscription.
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