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Holiday Tree
Traditions

More and more Jews in Metro Detroit are
decorating trees for the holiday season.

Reisa Shanaman | Special to the Jewish News

O

scar-winning actress
Natalie Portman, who
was born in Jerusalem
and holds dual U.S./Israeli citizen-
ship, claimed in a recent appear-
ance on The Tonight Show, “It’s
every Jew’s kind-of-secret wish to
have a Christmas tree.”
Although many Jews — and
others — consider a decorated
tree displayed during the holidays
a “Christmas tree,” s ocial media
observations over the last couple
of years do suggest an upward
trend in strongly identifying, non-
interfaith Jewish homes that have
adopted the festive holiday-tree
tradition.
“It’s so pretty; why can’t we have
that, too?” Portman pondered.
Lori Cowen, 29, of West
Bloomfield, concurs. “I love orna-
ments and just the whole idea of
decorating the tree,” she says. “I
don’t see religion in an evergreen
tree with lights on it. That doesn’t Albina Brayman’s family tree
scream Christianity to me,”
Cowen explains.
Ironically, she got her first
Christmas tree at age 17, using
Growing up in Uzbekistan,
money she received for Chanukah. Albina Brayman, 37, of
“My dad took one look at it
Birmingham always had a New
and said, ‘I want that out of my
Year’s tree at home. “If you use
house.’” She exchanged it for a
the term ‘Christmas tree,’ the Jews
much smaller specimen that
[there] get offended,” she informs.
remained in her room. “He wasn’t However, after immigrating to
thrilled, but that was livable,” she
Oak Park and being told, “It’s not
recalls. Cowen used a printed
a very Jewish thing to have a tree
photo of Jim Morrison as her tree
in the house,” her family elimi-
topper.
nated the tradition.
“It’s just a pretty thing that I
Although Brayman’s
like to look at,” she says, echoing
kids attended preschool at
Portman’s sentiments. “It makes
Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak
me think of the holidays, but just
Park, where they were instilled
the holidays in general.”
with a strong Jewish identity,

phere for
entering the public sphere
ntroduced
elementary school introduced
ed friction.
some holiday-induced
She recounts the day y her son came
home and declared to o her he no
wish because
longer liked being Jewish
Christmas was “so much cooler,”
specifically citing the e tree tradi-
tion.
-up call for
“That was a wake-up
s. “I can’t
me,” Brayman asserts.
eing Jewish
have them not like being
ds get a
because the other kids
uming her
Christmas tree.” Resuming
family’s practice, she e took them
to English Gardens, where they
er tree to
picked out a big, silver
decorate.
She says her kids — Aaron,
a, 3 —
7, Jacob, 5, and Leana,
absolutely love it. “It makes
them feel like they’re e just
ot left
as special. They’re not
man is
out,” she says. Brayman
ave the
equally ecstatic to have
ways
custom back. “I’ve always
hing
wanted to put something
up for the holidays ... .
Having the tree vali-
dates that we cel-
ebrate the holiday
so much more.”
er--
Not everyone under-
ave
stands the need to have
a tree, though. “Some e Jews
who didn’t grow up with that don’t
s, it works,”
understand it. For us,
she says. “It makes my kids happy.
It brings a little bit of f excitement
eason, which
during the holiday season,
is usually so gray, to see a pretty
ghts and deco-
tree all lit up with lights
rations. It makes us feel in the
holiday spirit.”
At 30, Emily Lane of Troy has

Emily Lane tops her tree with a six-pointed star.

continued on page 22

20 December 22 • 2016