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Organization is the key for a smooth move and this is the time to start getting the details of your move.
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Some resent the loss of their perceived monopoly status and long to return to the "good old days" of unquestioned supremacy like, say, the 1950s. Others are just bewildered by the change in the national religious dialogue. I can do nothing for the former group but perhaps I can help the latter by giving them an idea of what it was like to grow up as part of a religious minority during those "good old days" of the 1950s.
I know you don’t understand what I’m talking about but perhaps it would help if you could, as the saying goes, walk a mile in my shoes. It would be even better if that mile was one I had to walk many years ago as a child.
What follows is a letter I wrote a long time ago to a penpal in what I still sometimes think of as the foreign country of Texas:
magine yourself then, as a child; a small Jewish child. All around you is a huge, wonderful party. There are lights, music, food, presents and great excitement. Houses all around yours are brightly decorated; television programs and even commercials all tout the party and keep the excitement at fever pitch. It is everywhere; it is inescapable, and you are invited to join the fun. But…
You can’t go. Your parents won’t let you. What, you wonder, did you do wrong? "We're Jewish," they say. "It's not our holiday."
Once, when I was in grade school, I joined the chorus. Everyone told me what a beautiful voice I had and that this was where I belonged. When the holiday season approached, the school had us learn all the favorite Christmas carols, the O Come All Ye Faithfuls, the Silent Nights, the O Little Town of Bethlehems and the rest. An occasional Hanukah song like Dreidal or Oh Hanukah, Oh Hanukah was thrown in for a little leavening but, as far as I could tell, they were just add-ons that had none of the beauty and majesty of their Christian counterparts. I didn’t value them much.
Dear Suzanne,
I was so proud of myself that I couldn’t wait to show my mother all that I had learned! During Christmas break, I took a bunch of my school friends down to my street and we sang Christmas carols to all my neighbors. We got lots of cookies and compliments from each of them. Then I reached my own house, rang the doorbell and began singing. My mother opened the door and just stood there silent until the song was finished. I didn’t know why her eyes looked so sad or why she told me to say goodbye to my friends and come in. Then she started crying. It took me a long time to understand what was wrong when all I had done was try and make her proud of me.
I am an adult now and I understand that there's a lot more to Christmas than cookies and presents and singing and fun. For the parent of a Jewish child, the Christmas holiday is a war for his or her soul. Religion can never be divorced from it no matter how secular much of the celebration is. In self-defense we have transformed Hanukah into something to compete with it but Hanukah was never meant to be the major gift-giving holiday it has become and it’s influence will never be as pervasive as Christmas in a country where Christians are the large majority. As an adult, I can cope now and even admit that I like Christmas cookies better than latkes. That maturity of outlook too
Thank you for the Christmas card you sent me. As always, I appreciate your kind thoughts and good wishes. You ask me though, why I limit myself to saying “happy holidays” and never respond to “Merry Christmas” in kind. I agree that Christmas in America has evolved into something more than a religious holiday; that there’s a lot of joy and fun and good cheer in it… but that’s what makes it so insidious for the non-Christian. Getting
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