The year was 1955 and I was eight years old. Back then Christmas was a magical time, even for us Jews. I recall that nearly every school held a Christmas pageant that featured stories, carols and the grand finale — a living Nativity scene with boys and girls dressed as the kings and angels, wise…
Every year, conservatives declare there’s a war on Christmas if a manger is barred from a federal building or if there is no Christmas tree in their kid’s school. The outrage is even often focused on the Starbuck’s audacity to celebrate the holiday by printing offensive cups – this time depicting a lesbian couple. The…
I’ve been a musician since my first recorder lessons 50 years ago. My vision was to be the first woman conducting a major symphony, but Sarah Caldwell snagged that spot at precisely the moment I was graduating from high school. So much of the music I performed had its roots in Christian liturgy. Most of…
If you live outside of Israel or the Arab world, you’re probably used to well-meaning friends and strangers alike wishing you a “Merry Christmas!” For some, this is no big deal: we live in majority Christian nations, and Christmas is par for the course (as well as a fun, twinkly perk). For others, an innocent…
Do Jews put up Christmas trees? Absolutely — and absolutely not. On November 29, we asked our readers to share whether or not they put up a Christmas tree in their own homes. Many commented on our Facebook post or emailed us to share their stories. Here are a few that spoke to us: “I…
It is American Hanukkah’s perennial irony that this so-called “Festival of Lights” is both literally and figuratively outshone by the myriad Christmas lights that blanket trees and yards from well before Hanukkah begins to well after it concludes. Though observant viewers might glimpse a handful of candles by the window during the brief time that…
Do Jews put up Christmas trees? We recently surveyed our readers, and were surprised that a full 20% reported that “hell yes” they do. But given the results found in the 2013 Pew Study’s Portrait of Jewish Americans, perhaps we shouldn’t have been: Do a full third of Jews really put up trees? Perhaps. But…
As a New Yorker, I see Christmas tree stands pop up every few blocks every holiday season, but as a non tree-buying Jew, I never paid this phenomenon much attention. All of this changed a few years ago when I made Tree Man, a documentary film about Francois, the Christmas Tree Man of Broadway and…
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