Chrismukkah!

Cards meld Chanukah, Christmas.

HunterDouglas

CHANAN TIGAY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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New York
ome have called intermarriage the
silent killer of the Jewish people
— but for Minna Friedel Klug
and her family, it may have been a life-
saver.
"She believes they were spared only
because my grandmother in Germany
had married the love of her life, her
next-door neighbor, just as the Third
Reich was taking over," says Klug's
grandson, Ron Gompertz. He was
Lutheran."
Today Gompertz — himself married
to the daughter of a minister in the
United Church of Christ — has taken
the spirit of his grandmother's belief and
given it a lighthearted spin.
Alona b with his wife, Michelle,
Gompertz recently launched
Chrismukkah. con. The site markets a
line of greeting cards for inter-religious
families looking to harmonize the
"December dilemma," in which mixed
couples struggle with how best to cele-
brate their faiths' divergent traditions —
particularly when they have children.
"It's about tolerance. It's about under-
standing each other. It's about getting
along," Gompertz says by phone, en
route to the UPS drop-off site 20 miles
from his rural Montana home to mail
boxes of ordered cards.
And although he acknowledges that it
is not a real holiday," Gompertz says
Chrismukkah can introduce families to
each other's traditions "without being
threatening or offending."
The Chrismukkah Web site,
vvvvw.Chrismukkah.com , offers about a
dozen holiday cards, including one
depicting a reindeer with a menorah for
antlers; another in which red and white
candy canes replace candles in a meno-
rah; and another showing
"Chrismukkah
Man," a rab-
For interfaith
"Matzah-
binic figure in a
Man" and "Reindeer" cards for
Santa Claus-like
"Chrismukkah" meld symbols
outfit.
from Christmas and Chanukah.
While the
Chrismukkah
label is relative-
ly new — the
Gompertzes
got the name
from the Fox
TV series The
0.C, in which
character Seth
Cohen (Adam
Brody), who

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has a Jewish father and Christian moth-
er, explains that "in this house you don't
have to choose. Allow me to introduce
you to a little something I like to call
`Chrismukkah"' — Gompertz says it
refers to "the way millions of people
experience the holidays together each
year.''
Indeed, one-third of all Jews currently
wed are intermarried, according to the
2000-01 National Jewish Population
Survey. The study found that intermar-
riage is rising at a steady pace and stands
at 47 percent.
A 2003 report by the Jewish Outreach
Institute found that intermarried house-
holds, with at least one Jewish member,
may soon become a majority of homes.
This fact is not lost on holiday card-
makers, which were selling interfaith
cards long before Gompertz got into the
game.
"Cards are developed on consumer
demand," says Deidre Parkes, a spokes-
woman for Hallmark Cards Inc. "We
started with one" interfaith card "in the
late 1990s, and now we have eight."
Parkes says the company's interfaith
Christmas-Chanukah cards are typically
among its top 10 best sellers marking
the Festival of Lights.
And although these cards make up
less than 10 percent of the company's
full line of some 100 Chanukah cards,
melding the two religions' winter holi-
days is proving profitable for other com-
panies as well.
American Greetings Corp. offers sev-
eral such cards, including one depicting
a Jewish Santa Claus urging on his rein-
deer: "On Isaac! On Izzy! On Eli! On
Abe! On Levi! On Morty! On Shlomo!
On Gabe!" Inside, the card wishes the
recipient a "Merry Hanukkah."
For its part, the Chrismukkah site
welcomes visitors to the one place
where you don't have to choose. Here
you can have it all! Here we celebrate

