Consider season’s greetings. For many, these are unselfconscious gestures. But for others, they are loaded with significance. We can celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, after Thanksgiving, along with the new New Year, together and show respect for each other, but some prefer to exclude.
Indeed, this is the time of year that I often feel like an outsider in my own country. It has felt this way my whole life, though it was much harder as a child. I heard, and learned by osmosis, the Christmas songs, from White Christmas to Silent Night, and like all American kids, I was charmed. I was trained by the mass media to be sentimental about the holiday season and the Christmas spirit. I was intrigued by Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But I also knew that this all was not for me, not for Jews, not who I am.
When I was a kid, in a town that was 30% Jewish, 60% Catholic, 10% “other,” I did experience anti-Semitism of an everyday sort, accused of killing Christ by Catholic kids at the bus stop, having a hard time on my little league team with two particularly aggressive teammates.
There was not much socializing between the Jewish and the Catholic kids, there was a Jewish and a non-Jewish side of town. It was mostly not a matter of antagonism, more about knowing one’s place. Any gesture toward Christmas celebration on my part meant, somehow, not standing up for myself. I was taught by my parents to question Jews who had a Christmas tree, to think that such assimilation was a form of self hatred.
Yet, I knew then, as I know now, that this is an overwhelmingly Christian country and I am one of the outsiders. It is at this time of year that we, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists, feel disconnected from the mainstream. But when someone says Happy Holidays, as opposed to Merry Christmas, I do feel more at home.
It’s an act of civility. What the talking heads of Fox News call the “War on Christmas,” I know as acts of generosity and openness.
The proclamation of a war on Christmas, it is clear to me, is roughly equivalent to the cry of equal rights for whites.
Happy Holidays!
Happy holidays to all.
Jeff’s comments actually brought back a number of memories. I grew up in for the most part in a non-church going Christian household. (Here I’m reminded of Thomas Luckmann’s book The Invisible Religion). My paternal grandfather fled to America during the early 1900’ s when the religious persecution and ethnic genocide of Assyrians was taking place in the Middle East. My mother, a Catholic who drifted away from her church, kept symbols associated with Christian and many other religions around our home, and we respected the holidays of others. She always thought of herself as a very spiritual person. The exclusion that I felt wasn’t religious, it mostly associated with class: spending a quarter to go to a movie was a family sacrifice, and we didn’t have enough money for either Boy Scout or Little League uniforms so I wasn’t able to participate in those organizations.
Our town didn’t have a high school so we had a choice of going to one of three high schools in other towns: one known for being a blue collar school with few graduates that went to college; one which had a portion of its students who went on to college; and a third which had high numbers of its graduates that went on to college. Virtually all of the Jews in my town went to the third one, as well as a number of the rest of us who aspired to attend college. I went on to attend a university where most of the students were commuters.
My best friend in college was a Jewish refugee from Egypt. His family fled Egypt after Nasser came to power, and the state tried seizing his family’s assets. My friend’s father was a prominent orthopedic surgeon who had to start over as an intern in the United States. During Jewish holidays, I attended gatherings in my friend’s apartment and he joined in holiday celebrations in our apartment. We learned a lot around about our traditions around our respective family’s kitchen and dining room tables.
As an undergraduate, I took a course on comparative religions with Theodor Gaster, a Biblical scholar who helped translate the Dead Sea Scrolls. Professor Gaster’s father was the Chief Rabbi of the English Sephardi community in London. Professor Gaster when asked about religious beliefs offered a pragmatic answer: he believed that agnostics didn’t have any of the freedoms associated with being an atheist, nor the communal and spiritual support of believers so his leaning was towards being a believer. As he said, you never know. At the time, it sounded convincing to me and since then I have tried to benefit from what I considered the best aspects of all religions to which I have been exposed throughout the world. For instance, I have felt comfortable visiting the houses of worship of most major religions; have been intrigued by the religious practices of many indigenous peoples; and have enjoyed participating in a variety of religious celebrations. For the most part, I have felt welcome. I feel fortunate.
Happy holidays to all.
I was particularly caught by Jeff’s phrase: “I often feel like an outsider…”. What follows is a true story. I am reminded of a town council meeting in my small New Jersey hamlet. It was about 4 years ago right before the holiday season. A cpuple of townsfolk came to the meeting to complain that town money was being spent on public Christmas decorations. Without hesitating, the head of the council stood up from his chair and exclaimed, “I don’t see the problem, this is a white, Christian town.” Talk about feeling invisible. Unbelievable. I have Hindu friends in this place; how invisible did they feel as well? The council leader was never asked to step down or apologize. And so it goes. I will take this moment to wish everyone a happy New Year.
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Jeff, as a partisan in the War on Christmas, I want to wish you and Naomi the happiest of holidays in the plural. Thanks for everything. V
Jeff, season’s greetings, happy holidays! It is because of you and some others that I have learned to make a point out of not wishing Merry Christmas unless I am pretty sure the person is actually Christian. Which is appropriate in a city with a sizeable Muslim community… Thank you for teaching me to be more considerate!