Sleigh bells jingle, wrapping paper rustles, mince pies appear on the supermarket shelves (if you’re lucky) …aaah, what a wonderful time of the year. And right on cue, the air fills with the sound of Jews justifying why they celebrate the birth of the founder of the religion that has triggered absolutely shedloads of antisemitism over the years.
Oh, but they say, they’re not actually celebrating that. It’s nothing to do with Mary’s boychild, or the King of Is-a-ra-el as one of those annoyingly tuneful carols so delightfully puts it. No, they are joining in with the fuzzy, gluttonous, warm glow that comes at Yuletide, lighting up the gloomy winter with pagan symbols like the tree (a custom imported from Germany, a country more famous for…no, I won’t spoil it for you) and fun decorations, and the vast amounts of food, and the huge amounts of television – because of course, we never eat roast dinners, or see our family or watch television the rest of the year.
Besides, they say, sticking on Classic FM, leafing through A Christmas Carol and queuing for a kosher turkey, of course we want to join in. It’s British, isn’t it? As outsiders — refugees even — we want to assimilate into the culture all around us. Just in case people think we’re different and foreign and Other in any way. Just in case we feel that way ourselves. Let’s pretend we’re all part of the lovely, inclusive, multicultural consumer fest that is a British Christmas. It’s a fabulous present for us all. Even for those of us for whom the immigrant experience is generations in the past.
Bah, humbug. Yes, I understand the attraction of a shiny bauble — but I got over it when I was about six. Yes, I know the horror of feeling left out — but I am not 16 any more. In fact I rather like the feeling of being different. After all, at Chanukah we have literally just celebrated our resistance to the lure of assimilation.
Of course I understand the need to join in with a host culture. Been there, done that. When my kids were growing up in Amsterdam I confess that we did celebrate St Nicholas’s Eve — Sinterklaas — as a child-friendly way into Dutch culture. They left their shoes out on the evening of 5 December, and in the morning found they were full of pepernoten (spicy biscuits) and chocolate letters for the initial of their names. We went to see the Sint parade through the city with his ‘helpers’, the ‘Black Piets’ — a whole racially-charged problem of their own. I can still sing Sinterklaas songs now. Although as they’ve grown up, and we’ve left the Netherlands I don’t need to. We were never really Dutch, after all. And history tells us that all the Christmas pudding in the world doesn’t make us not Other.
I’d never go as far as my near namesake, Larry David who says that all things Xmas fill him with dread. In fact I like celebrating Not Christmas, savouring free time with no pressure, no last minute panics or over-spending. We make our own traditions (Trivial Pursuit, spinach lasagna, since you ask). As I watch my non-Jewish friends stress about family broiguses, menus, present-buying and more, I’m thankful not to have to worry about it. One of my friends in fact was so disenchanted by the typical English Christmas — the gluttony, the empty materialism — that she started to design her own religion. Then she realised it looked a lot like Judaism. Then she converted.
Goodwill to all men — have yourself a merry Yiddishe Christmas. What does upset me is if you make out there’s a competition going on, weighing Jewish festivals against Christian ones and finding the Jewish ones lacking. Meh, some moan, Chanukah candles aren’t as exciting as — say — Christmas at Kew. Boo hoo, Pesach would be so much better if the eggs were chocolate instead of boiled and eaten with salt. How poorly designed of Judaism, to miss out sparkle and glitter and chocolate and mince pies. How much better Christianity does these things.
Do me a favour, stop talking nonsense. Pesach versus a secular, sentimental Xmas is like comparing Handel’s Messiah with We Wish you all a Wombling Merry Christmas. If you can’t see the beauty and grandeur, meaning and multiple layers in your own traditions — if you need to denigrate them to justify your pigs-in-blankets — then you’re doing your little bit to tell the world that Jews don’t count.
Eat your turkey, if you want to. Put on your paper hat. Yes, it’s fun to join in with the majority. But if you have to do down Judaism to do so, you can get stuffed.
