Photograph via Flickr/Creative Commons As an Orthodox Jew who believes in the world to come while participating pretty fully in the world at large, I will admit that there are certain things I like about Christmas aka “the holiday season.” I like the festive spirit, the Starbucks sweet and spicy Christmas blend coffee, and the…
(JTA) — While chestnuts roast on open fires elsewhere in Dallas, another holiday tradition beckons for some of the city’s Jews: the Christmas Day Classic recreational football game. The first such game took place in 1964, when 16 teenage boys were looking for a diversion on an otherwise uneventful day. Now those “boys” are in…
Vered Guttman (Haaretz) — My kids love Christmas. It’s the only time of year we eat Chinese food, a cuisine I’m not particularly fond of. But tradition is tradition, and I’m not the one to break the generations-long ritual of Chinese and a movie. This tradition is indeed so well established, that when I called to…
Have you heard the Christmas version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” a recently released YouTube sensation by Kansas-based band Cloverton? Well, I have, and I hate it. But not for the reasons you might think. Am I pissed off — as many Jews appear to be — on Cohen’s behalf, because he’s Jewish and these musicians…
A mocking holiday display depicting an angel falling into the pit of hell was deliberately knocked off its table in Florida’s Capitol rotunda Tuesday, but was quickly restored by a local atheist leader whose group sponsored the exhibit. Capitol police detained a Tallahassee woman who they said knocked over the display, which carried the tagline:…
In a first, Hebrew University will give its students the day off on Christmas. There will be no classes on Thursday, Dec. 25, a new vacation day on the university calendar. The students also had off on Sunday for Hanukkah. The university also has declared a vacation day for and placed on its institutional calendar…
At the first poinsettia sighting, many of my Jewish friends from New York or Los Angeles recall youthful feelings of exclusion. To them I say, get over it. If you want to know authentic Christmas envy, try growing up Jewish in a frostbitten North Dakota town with a Lutheran church on every other corner. In…
Rudolph the blue-nosed reindeer? // by Lior Zaltzman Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, The Ronettes, Nat King Cole — their voices fill the air come Christmastime, injecting some holiday warmth into our Grinch-sized winter hearts. But as you’ve probably heard, behind (almost) every merry and bright hit, there’s a Jewish writer.. Can you tell which of your…
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