The inescapable and ubiquitous Christmas songs, specials, etc -- and how us Jews helped create and embed them, have fought against them, and how some deal with it now -- fa-who dor-ay, fa-who dor-ay, ...
-- An All-American ChristmasThe white Christmases that Irving Berlin dreamed of weren't the earliest ones he used to know. ... watching his neighbors burn his family's house to the ground in a good old-fashioned, Jew-hating pogrom.
So it's no surprise that when Berlin got around to writing his great Christmas song in 1941, nearly half a century after his family had fled the shtetl of Mohilev for New York's Lower East Side, it was flatly devoid of Christian imagery. It is, for all that, a religious song. ...
Have a Jewish Christmas lists most of the holiday favorites -- and their songwriters (guess who?)
The Brownsville Public School Boycott of 1905 -- great story of how we were able to remove some of the most explicit Christian Christmas stuff from NYC Public Schools. But --
... modified Christmas observances would be allowed – Santa Clauses and Christmas trees would still be permitted – so long as "sectarian views" were not introduced. ... the citywide Elementary School Committee issued a report recommending that the schools ban the singing of hymns and the assignment of essays on sectarian themes during Christmas. They did not, however, exclude Christmas trees or Santa images from the schools. The battle over a more secularized, folklore representation of Christmas festivities, ... continues ...
And from Slate, A Jewish parent's guide to Christmas specials (unlike my family, many apparently don't want their kids watching them all, and weren't themselves allowed to watch them all either) --
... the consensus was this: Jewish kids of my generation were permitted to watch one or all of: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and The Year Without Santa Claus. Therefore, their children are also allowed to watch them. But ask them why these movies pass muster and prepare for whomping exhibitions of illogic as only the People of the Book can practice it.
I learned this week that there exists an unspoken "no Jesus" rule, a "no Santa" rule, a "no saints" rule, a "no resurrections" rule (even if it's resurrection by proxy; thus no Frosty), and also a "no bad music" rule. ...
and a response to Lithwick, including this:
... I think that Jews identify not with the Grinch, but with the Whos. Seuss modeled the Grinch on the dictators of his time, and he modeled the Whos -- both here and (more explicitly) in the Horton book -- after the oppressed peoples of Europe. ...
Quite a complicated tangle, no?
At least Hermey the elf is one of us. ; >
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Thank you for the very interesting
and educational pre-Holiday reading!
i [heart] dahlia
and wasn't that from slate and not from salon?
my parents raised their kids in various protestant churches, sent us to jewish summer camp, and introduced us to various muslims and buddhists and daoists [and hindus, almost forgot the hindus]. this was overall a good thing [and nobody was very surprised wheni renounced santa claus and the easter bunny and the tooth fairy and god all at the same time] but i think it probably blinded me to just how much santa claus and the easter bunny have taken over the population at large.
a real eye-opener seeing it put together all in one place like this.
oops--i'll fix that
and my pics are up now, hip -- Spain 12/08
:)
my computer is now sporting one of the aqueduct pictures. way cool pics, way cool feat of engineering.
: >
i'm still amazed at how gigantic it was in real life -- i had no clue that it was so tall, and long -- and in such good condition.
(it's like the reverse of the mona lisa, actually -- it was much smaller and less impressive in real life, i thought. We know so many things from pics alone or tv, and the real thing is so different)
ta, amberglow
Good post. It's one thing to have all the pieces - putting them all together like this is another.
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
there are so many more-- the push-pull is continual
this time of year -- every year. It's why Hanukkah -- a really really minor holiday -- has been so expanded here in the US -- all bec of Christmas.
the December Dilemma: How does one observe this minor Jewish holiday, which began at sundown Sunday, when the air is filled with Santa Claus?
another Slate piece -- & related to the Brownsville boycott too
Christmas for Jews: How Hanukkah became a major holiday.