News

Meet the Atheist Jew Fighting to Take God Out of the Holidays

Image by Wikimedia

By Daniel J. Solomon December 7, 2016

‘Tis the season — for presents, caroling and the anti-Christmas billboard campaign run by David Silverman, head of the American Atheists group that every year urges Americans to avoid religious celebrations of Christmas.

“Make Christmas Great Again. Skip Church!” reads one of the signs, which are running in Colorado, South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. Another features a text conversation in which a girl tells a friend that she won’t be going to services this holiday season, with the tag line “Atheist Christmas. The more, the merrier!”

This round of billboards represents a toning-down from previous iterations of the campaign, which three years ago attracted criticism from some after American Atheists mounted a billboard in Times Square that referred to Jesus as a “myth.”

Image by AmericanAtheists.org

Silverman has led quite a Jewish life in some ways, growing up in a Reform congregation, attending Brandeis University and forming relationships with liberal Jewish groups like Workmen’s Circle and the Society for Humanistic Judaism. He even celebrates the holiday season — with Passover’s matzo ball soup, but still.

Silverman defended the billboard initiative in a press release this month. “It is important for people to know religion has nothing to do with being a good person, and that being open and honest about what you believe — and don’t believe — is the best gift you can give this holiday season,” he said. “More and more Americans are leaving religion, but we still have work to do when it comes to fighting the stigma many atheists face.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO