Israeli Kids and Christmas
Avi Jacobson
Ethel Jean Saltz wrote:
>
> Do Israeli Jews have such a problem as Christmas and kids? If so,
> they're more American than even I imagined.
>
> However, if we want a Cultural Zionism, with Jerusalem as the focal
> point (representing the universal Jew) then I can see this as a great
> question from JEws all around the world.
>
> I can't imagine this problem in a real Jewishly-thinking family
> myself. I didn't have a "kosher" home, but this question never came up
> in my house. My kids just knew how a Jew looked at the entire
> universe. Don't know why there's so much problems out there. It's all
> so simple, ONE INDIVISABLE GOD. It's all so scientific too.
> Then if you add the real history of Christmas, then it becomes
> self-evident.
>
> Oh well, I'm such an "old-fashioned" person.
And a bit simplistic, I would say.
Last Christmas, I posted the following article here on this issue. I
think it has relevance as a reply to the original poster's question.
-- Reposted Article Begins Here ---
Some Thoughts on Jewishness at Christmas Time
by Avi Jacobson
Long ago, before anyone ever dreamt of population shifts, cultural
cross-fertilization, and ethnic plurality, there must have been a time
when people were born into a culture and remained exclusively bonded to
it throughout their lifetimes. It was their culture which bestowed upon
them their single language; their religion (if they had one); their
traditions of art, music, and literature; their family structure; and
the basic framework of human values upon which their personal beliefs
were built. One can stretch the imagination far enough, perhaps, to
envision an age when no one was even aware of the existence of other
cultures or -- at the very least -- when everyone knew which elements of
his life were genuinely his own and which he had taken the Foreigner.
From time to time one hears a media report, or an urban legend, about
such isolated communities continuing to exist today -- about some
recently-discovered bastion where nothing has changed over the
millennia, an island whose racial and cultural shores have remained
untouched by even the tiniest speck of alien influence.
If such a community does exist, its denizens stand at the very tip of
the spectrum of polyculturality. At the opposite end are those who
subscribe to the doctrine of the Melting Pot -- that politically
ultracorrect precept whereby all cultures and all ideas belong to all
people and no one has a moral right to prefer anything over anything
else. Carried to an extreme, the Melting Pot doctrine essentially
eliminates all cultures, since by accepting all equally without judgment
or discretion, Meltingpotism prevents the individual from making any
personal choices whatsoever. Capitalism is as good as Socialism;
Christianity is as good as Atheism; the sanctity of fetal life is
neither more nor less important than "the right to choose"; there is no
more reason to teach U.S. children English than to teach them Hottentot;
no less reason to teach them Hottentot than to teach them English.
In the twentieth century, most of us stand somewhere between these two
extremes. At the center of our cultural universe is our "home culture"
-- a notion we tend to perceive as being akin to "fatherland" and
"mother tongue". Surrounding that central world, and casting various
degrees of force and influence upon it, are other cultural worlds: the
minority cultures existing in our midst, the majority culture in which
our own culture is embedded, the distant cultures of our ancestors, the
cultures of those who call to us through the electronic media.
The price we pay for our polyculturality is culture shock: the trauma
that arises when our exposure to different cultures and traditions
forces us to integrate cultural abstractions that are mutually
exclusive, or -- at the very least -- mutually repugnant.
CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM IN A CULTURALLY PLURALISTIC SOCIETY
I first heard the term "culture shock" some 25 years ago when, as a
teenager, I immigrated to Israel from the United States with my family.
It was a basket term constantly bandied about by frustrated
English-speaking immigrants like ourselves to describe our frustration
at such outrageous discoveries as socialized medicine, theocracy, public
school tuition, and maxillary hair. Caught up in a coerced process
dubbed "absorption" by the immigration authorities, we were expected to
come to accept and uphold all of these indigenous Israeli concepts.
Throughout all of those traumatic "absorption" years, it never occurred
to me that there was nothing new about culture shock; in fact, I had
been brought up on it all my life.
As a culturally-aware Liberal American Conservative Jew growing up in
the United States in the fifties and sixties, I had been raised to
accept two sets of ethics which emanated from two fundamentally
different sources. The first -- the national tradition of the
multicultural country in which I lived -- was called "The American Way";
its central tenets were life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the
proposition that all men are created equal. The second, the cultural
tradition of the ethnic group to which I belonged, was called "Jewish
Tradition"; its central tenets were "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God,
the Lord is One" and "Blessed art Thou ... who chose us from amongst all
the nations". Like all Good Jewish Americans, I adopted both of these
value systems as my guiding lights, totally oblivious of the antilogy
that arose from accepting them both and of the shortcomings (some might
say: hyopcrisy) inherent in the way of life they produced.
Being Good Americans meant that my parents would democratically and
liberally refrain from placing any limitations on my dating non-Jewish
girls; being a Good Jew meant that I would never dream of marrying one.
Being a Good American meant I would chime in with the requisite Holiday
Spirit at Christmas time (finding extreme enjoyment in singing Christmas
carols in Latin publicly, devouring candy canes, and watching Hallmark
Christmas specials on TV); being a good Jew meant I wouldn't dream of
having a Christmas tree or stocking, or of lining up to see Santa at
Wanamaker's. Being a Good American meant graciously accepting a
neighbor's invitation to Midnight Mass and even taking the eucharist;
being a Good Jew meant "not meaning it". The boundaries in our family
were usually very clear, and with no inkling of how arbitrary they
actually were, I faithfully scorned, with equal fervor, Reform Jews with
their Hanukkah Bushes and the Orthodox boy at school choir who refused
to sing along with the Schubert Mass in G.
DOUBLE CULTURE SHOCK
One might think that for a Jew born and raised in the United States, it
would be easier to be a Jew in Israel than in the Diaspora. Sadly, this
is not the case. Like Liberal American Jews, the Secular Israeli Jew
finds himself sandwiched between two sets of values that cannot easily
be conjoined. On the one hand is the secular ideology: "I am a loyal
citizen of the State of Israel; I pay my taxes and fight in the army and
therefore need not believe in God or abide by halacha". On the other
hand is the "Jewish character of the Jewish state".
Here, the situation is far more complex: Secular Israelis resent being
forced by the political power of the Orthodox parties to abide by
religious law in many aspects of their lives: There is no public
transport on the Sabbath, no secular marriage, divorce, or burial.
There is no public television or radio on major religious holidays.
Hence, many secular Israelis perceive Jewish tradition as a bone in
their throat. On the other hand, the central unique *raison d'etre* of
the Jewish state is the proposition that Israel differs from the states
that surround it, by virtue of its Jewishness -- and this fact has
always been a central theme in the national culture. The result: many
symbols of Jewish tradition remain an inherent part of secular Israel,
but they have been emptied of their content. And just as in American
Jewish society, there is a complex set of boundaries for each family,
indeed for each individual -- generally clear, though arbitrary.
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE
This year, for the first time that I can remember, I have seen Christmas
ornaments and Santa Clauses in Israeli shops -- yet another import from
the universal Western culture that brought us CNN and Roller Blades. (I
hasten to add, as a parenthetical anecdote, that Israel has always been
the dumping ground, commencing on December 26 every year, for the
world's surplus candy canes and Christmassy gift wrap paper -- an ironic
twist to the old tradition of selling last year's car models and expired
pharmaceuticals to the Third World.) I am at a loss to explain to my
children rationally why the sudden popularity in Israel of Christmas
memorabilia shocks me, and why I refuse to have even a desk-top bonzai
Christmas tree. And I know that I cannot be honest with them until I
have been honest with myself.
It is not that Christian symbols bother me: I am a semiprofessional
musician, and frequently sing Christian music just for fun, often in
churches. Nor is it the notion of bringing such symbols into a Jewish
household that disturbs me: I have gone as far as to host a Christmas
party *in my own home*, along with several other Jewish friends who
formed the carolling choir -- but this was for a non-Jewish colleague
stranded in Israel away from home, and herein may lie the key.
I have always been liberal about tasting the religious rituals of other
cultures: Once, in Katmandu, I was blessed by an old monk, who tied a
prayer thread around my neck. I carefully followed his instructions on
how to dispose of it to make the prayer come true ("Leave it in the
highest of places," he said, and I tucked it into the overhead luggage
compartment on the plane back to Israel). Indeed, I would not be
offended if my daughter wished to purchase a hamsa (the traditional
Muslim five-fingered talisman), or wear jewelry adorned with Muslim
crescents, or wear a kaffiye as a scarf. Why balk at Santas and trees?
Why do I not bat an eyelash when she pronounces the colloquial Israeli
"ya, Allah!" (Arabic: "O, Allah!") for "Good Grief!", but still wince at
"Jesus Christ!" (just as popular in Israeli slang)? And why do I, the
world's greatest lover of pork and seafood, find myself so saddened at
her rejection of specific symbols of traditional Jewishness that I hold
so dear? I cannot find the answers myself, let alone explain them to
her.
FULL CIRCLE
By a strange twist of fate, my eldest daughter from an earlier marriage,
a Sabra raised in Israel, has now moved to the United States with her
mother and has performed "absorption" in reverse. Her culture shock
might be the strongest of anyone's in our family, since it embeds within
it all of the prior generations of culture shock: Traditional Jewish
values vs. Liberal American values, Conservative Jewish values vs.
Polarized Israeli Jewish values, and now all-of-the-above vs. the
American values of the 90s to which she is exposed. Yet paradoxically,
her teen-age transition into the culture of her new home seems to have
been far more effortless than was my own. But still the anomalies
persist. She regularly goes to church with her Christian friends, but
is shocked at the idea of her younger sister (here in Israel) wanting a
Christmas tree. At the age of ten or so (her in Israel), she agreed to
come with me to Yom Kippur services only if we took a roundabout route
so her secular friends would not think she had become Orthodox; once in
the U.S., she refused to sing songs with the word "Jesus" in them.
Although she may not yet realize it, her problem, like mine, is that all
of these conflicting cultures have become a part of her. They cannot
coexist, and yet they do. One day she, like me, will feel called upon
to address them. As I gaze at the carollers in New York on CNN, wishing
I could be there joining in -- now as wistful as I was shocked at the
Santa dolls on Tel Aviv's trendy Sheinkin Street -- I wonder how old my
Sabra-turned-American daughter will be when all of this reaches her
consciousness, as it has only now reached mine. And I wonder how she
will resolve the questions, and how I will.
--
Avi Jacobson, email: avi_...@netvision.net.il | When an idea is
Home Page (Israel): | wanting, a word
http://www.netvision.net.il/php/avi_jaco | can always be found
Mirror Home Page (U.S.): | to take its place.
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/4034 | -- Goethe