For most of my life I have been confronted by the Chanukah vs Christmas paradox. When I was young, Chanukah was a lesser holiday celebrated by eating latkes (potato pancakes fried in oil) and lighting the candles each night. The fact that this was the "festival of lights" or the "festival of freedom" was lost on me. We received Chanukah "gelt" (money) with the stipulation that half was to be given to the poor--in our house a blue box given to us by the Jewish National Fund. Proceeds went to Israel--then another nebulous concept (until 1948 that is). The "gelt" was never more than 50 cents--a princely sum when you could buy a chocolate bar for 10 cents. Of course, only 25 cents got to stick in my hands. No one gave opulent gifts and no one expected them. First, my family was not in the financial position to give opulent gifts and, second, that was not the style of the day. Christmas, on the other hand, was important to our family business. Much of our retail business was conducted in the Christmas season. Gifts were purchased and the hyper commercialization of Christmas was yet to come. However, we were culturally exposed: we all sang carols at school (and recited the Lord's prayer every morning) without complaint. Religious (or non-religous) pluralism was yet to come. As Jews my parents had always been the lesser part of a dominant culture and Canada was not much different from Russia in that regard. For our family (and many other Jews) Easter was the dangerous holiday: the crucifixion of Christ was then firmly fixed on the heads of Jews and the Catholic church made no effort to stem the anti-semitism that was already adrift in the community. But Christmas was always relatively benign for the security of the Jews in Ottawa. Everyone that worked for our family was Catholic and my parents made sure that there was a little extra in the pay envelope (everyone was paid in cash) for the Christmas season. There were no Christmas parties and, for the most part, employees were happy to be employed and my family was happy that there was enough business to pay their salaries and have a bit left over for profit.
Even as a youngster I was aware that the inter-religious problems that Jews faced were rarely generated by non-Jews. They were generated by the Church--mostly the Catholic church. Most of the non-Jews that I knew were, if not tolerant toward Jews, living in a symbiotic relationship with the Jews of our community. Everyone knew the boundaries. There many stores to which Jews did not apply for work. The banks did not generally employ Jews. Nor did the insurance companies. There were quotas in the universities for the enrolment of Jews. Nonetheless Jews excelled. For the children of Jewish immigrant families to get ahead it was necessary to get better grades just to be on a level educational playing field with our non-Jewish neighbours. Thankfully many of these walls came down and the educational and business relationships became more ecumenical. But for many non Jews, Jews were, at best a mysterious cult and at worst were Christ killers. I have American friends who attended university in the 1950s only to be asked by Christian "friends" where their horns were.
Chanukah and Christmas and Kwanza are now more ecumenical. Not to say that there is religious harmony but Christmas trees and Chanukah lamps stand side by side in your favourite mall. Chanukah has become a sort of Jewish Christmas in that children expect gifts on each of the 8 days while Christian kids are envious of the stretched out Jewish holiday. What has happened, for good or for ill, is that much of the religious content of these holidays has been largely striped away. I do not want to go back to my youth because Chanukah was not as major a holiday as it has become. I do not want to go back to my youth when Christmas was more divisive than it is today. It seems that time has somewhat healed over these differences.
To my Jewish friends and family, a happy Chanukah. To my non Jewish friends, a Merry Christmas. I do not subscribed to the generic "happy holiday" generic greeting. To all, a Happy New Year.
Bernie.
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