Do We Assume People Know the Meaning of Hanukkah?
My post below about whether Christmas has been stolen, actually has little, substantively to do with this post about Hanukkah, but there were a couple of events that happened today that made me ask whether others really understand the meaning of Hanukkah and its significance for Jews.
The first of such an event occurred when I was at Staples, Xeroxing and collating my briefs to be sent to court. An elderly woman, an African American, had a beautiful newspaper clipping of Rosa Parks that she was not to be color copied to send to her grandsons. We began to converse, and she indicated that she was fearful that her grandsons would not really understand the Civil Rights movement and wanted to educate them about it. I said that I understood, because I was a Jew, and was worried how significant the Holocaust would become to generations to follow. She looked at me and said, "Oh...I would not think you were a Jew." I said, why and she humbly confessed that she did not know much about the Jews, how they looked or about the religion.
The next stop was the post office to mail the briefs. While I was there, a Korean woman waited on me and asked if I needed any stamps. I said, yes, I would like the Hanukkah ones, with those shimmering dreidls spinning. She said, we do not have any of those, we did not get them. But we have the Christmas cookie ones. I told her I did not celebrate Christmas. She said, you do not celebrate Christmas, wow. What is this Hanukkah. At that point, I stood as still as a log, and said, it was a holiday celebrated by the Jewish people.
Sometimes I take it for granted that other people know about Hanukkah and its symbolism. Jews number about 10-14 million in the entire world. We are now a very small minority, less than those who live in Cuba. I remember when my children were growing up, and they went to public school, each year, I would take time off to explain Hanukkah to the class, hoping that they knew that there was an alternative, very dramatically different from Christmas. I would bring in the menorah, candles, and read a Hanukkah story, each year, until my children told me to stop at High School. It was enough already.
In my eyes, Hanukkah has not ever been an alternative to Christmas, since it is such a different holiday. Those Jews who grow up in insular communities, who are not exposed to Christmas may be shocked to see that many in the outside world do not even know what this holiday is about is more than lighting candles for 8 nights, eating latkes, exchanging gifts, and spinning dreidls. This post would be too long if it were explained in great length, but I will provide a link to an explanation of Hanukkah and what it means to us.http://www.everythingjewish.com/Hanukah/origins.htm
Personally, I do not celebrate Christmas, never have had a Christmas tree, and do not embrace this day as a meaningful celebration for our family. But I understand it, respect those who celebrate the holiday and think of it as one of the more meaningful ones in their religious life.
Do we sometimes live inside of our own glass bubbles, thinking that others know and understand about traditions, religions and customs different from our own? How open are we to learning, sharing and exploring the world beyond our own beliefs?
I do not think Hanukkah could 'ever be stole' as some think Christmas is being hijacked by changing names, salutations, and other symbols. For me, Hanukkah is about more than the outward displays of commercialism, and it truly about the story of the miricle of the oil lasting for eight days. Maybe, in our own ways, unknown to us, we destroy our own holidays by forgetting what they truly mean.
Thank you for your minds.
The first of such an event occurred when I was at Staples, Xeroxing and collating my briefs to be sent to court. An elderly woman, an African American, had a beautiful newspaper clipping of Rosa Parks that she was not to be color copied to send to her grandsons. We began to converse, and she indicated that she was fearful that her grandsons would not really understand the Civil Rights movement and wanted to educate them about it. I said that I understood, because I was a Jew, and was worried how significant the Holocaust would become to generations to follow. She looked at me and said, "Oh...I would not think you were a Jew." I said, why and she humbly confessed that she did not know much about the Jews, how they looked or about the religion.
The next stop was the post office to mail the briefs. While I was there, a Korean woman waited on me and asked if I needed any stamps. I said, yes, I would like the Hanukkah ones, with those shimmering dreidls spinning. She said, we do not have any of those, we did not get them. But we have the Christmas cookie ones. I told her I did not celebrate Christmas. She said, you do not celebrate Christmas, wow. What is this Hanukkah. At that point, I stood as still as a log, and said, it was a holiday celebrated by the Jewish people.
Sometimes I take it for granted that other people know about Hanukkah and its symbolism. Jews number about 10-14 million in the entire world. We are now a very small minority, less than those who live in Cuba. I remember when my children were growing up, and they went to public school, each year, I would take time off to explain Hanukkah to the class, hoping that they knew that there was an alternative, very dramatically different from Christmas. I would bring in the menorah, candles, and read a Hanukkah story, each year, until my children told me to stop at High School. It was enough already.
In my eyes, Hanukkah has not ever been an alternative to Christmas, since it is such a different holiday. Those Jews who grow up in insular communities, who are not exposed to Christmas may be shocked to see that many in the outside world do not even know what this holiday is about is more than lighting candles for 8 nights, eating latkes, exchanging gifts, and spinning dreidls. This post would be too long if it were explained in great length, but I will provide a link to an explanation of Hanukkah and what it means to us.http://www.everythingjewish.com/Hanukah/origins.htm
Personally, I do not celebrate Christmas, never have had a Christmas tree, and do not embrace this day as a meaningful celebration for our family. But I understand it, respect those who celebrate the holiday and think of it as one of the more meaningful ones in their religious life.
Do we sometimes live inside of our own glass bubbles, thinking that others know and understand about traditions, religions and customs different from our own? How open are we to learning, sharing and exploring the world beyond our own beliefs?
I do not think Hanukkah could 'ever be stole' as some think Christmas is being hijacked by changing names, salutations, and other symbols. For me, Hanukkah is about more than the outward displays of commercialism, and it truly about the story of the miricle of the oil lasting for eight days. Maybe, in our own ways, unknown to us, we destroy our own holidays by forgetting what they truly mean.
Thank you for your minds.
posted by BarbaraFromCalifornia at
3:19 PM
9 Comments:
very wise post
i got nothing to add :)
Thanks for posting this, Barbara. I was lucky growing up on Long Island - I lived in a community that had very strong Jewish roots so I fully understand the holiday.
As for destroying our own holidays, I think that may be too harsh a term, but I do agree with where you're headed. Generally, each generation knows less and less about why we celebrate, and instead, they expect gifts simply because of a date on the calendar.
Umm, maybe destroy is the right word.
hi
i think it's very sad that people never step outside of their own little bubbles and see what it's like for others. their ignorance is their loss -- i find it fascinating to learn about others and their cultures -- it will only be lost to those who venture not to learn -- otherwise it's there for them, if they open their eyes a little.
Never underestimate the igonorance of the American public.
Rabbit, rabbit!
It's weird how little people know about Hanukkah, really.
I'm ashamed to say I know nothing about the meaning of Hanukkah, but I am always willing to learn! We do not have many jews here in Norway, and especially not in my hometown! I had the privilege to study with two jews though, at university. One was american, and one from Israel. I have always known hovever that there was something called Hanukkah, and when it was celebrated. But my jewish friends never talked about it. They never opened for the discussion, and I was too embarrassed to ask.
Now both of them has moved - Dror to Israel, and the american girl married an englishman and moved to Bath, England.
So - Thank you for the link! I will read it today, and learn something new...
By the way - I was shocked and appalled this week when I heard on the news that some politicians and teachers here in Norway actually proposed to remove ww1, and ww2 from the syllabus for high school. that meant that they wouldn't discuss the meaning (if there ever was a meaning) behind holocaust - or what happened at all.
Luckily there was an uproar. Surprisingly enough the ones that protested the most was the highschool students themselves. One of them said it was one of the most important events in modern history and how could we learn from the past to keep it from happening again if people don't know about it? I could have kissed this promising youth...
this holiday is about is more than lighting candles for 8 nights, eating latkes, exchanging gifts, and spinning dreidls.
In your last post I commented about how I feel commericialization and corporations are taking over Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, etc., and I have wondered why that is. Is it because we live in a gift giving society? Is it assimilation to the American norm? Is it wanting to have our cake and eat it too?
It bothers me that other religious holidays are being co-opted by the gift giving mafia, but more bothersome that people who practice these religions are willingly participating in gift giving to appear to their Christian friends and family to be "just like them."
Most of the rituals of Christmas (e.g., the tree) derive from pagan traditions and have nothing to do with Jesus Christ. Christmas defined as the celebration of the birth of Jesus wasn't even officially recognized as a U.S. national holiday until somewhere around 1870. Subsequently, people have assumed that all the Xmas rituals are part and parcel of the Jesus-based celebration, but that's not what they were to begin with -- thus it's a bit misleading to talk about the holiday moving away from a celebration of Jesus Christ since that's not what it started out as. Xmas is really a pastiche of religious (Christian, but not only Christian) and nonreligious carnival rituals. (By carnival I'm referring to Bahktin's Rabelaisian notion of "carnival" as the celebration of all things earthy and earthly. Every culture has some element of carnival in it. Bahktin argued that the carnival was historically a very useful tool for the ruling class, because it allowed the peasants to blow off steam and expend their energy through celebration rather than through unified uprisings against the ruling class.)
Anyway, to Hanukkah, the real point of your post -- totally different holiday with a much more focused purpose. It gets compared to Xmas only because it occurs around the same time. I've often wondered about the pressures on Jews to make an Xmas-like commercialized gift exchange out of Hanukkah because their kids (in this country anyway) may feel cheated out of the spending extravaganza that Xmas has become. This year, G and I picked up some Ann Taintor Xmas cards that show kids opening presents around the tree. The copy reads: "Now was probably not the best time to tell the kids they were Jewish." It made us laugh because it points out the commercial aspect of Xmas. "What, you want me to exchange my X-Box for some chocolate coins? Are you NUTS?" :-)
When I originally came to post a comment on this I got sidetracked, I followed your link on Hanukkah and then kept on looking, reading and discovering more,,, love history!! so I forgot to post my comment... so catch up here.
What I find wonderful is that WE here in the 21st century are as Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans and many others are coming together on the World Wide Web to discover each other and I find that very good. The story of Hanukkah as I understand it was a clash of Cultures and religions, and the Jewish people standing up to perserve their heritage,,, which if they had not would possibly have been lost. So at that time, it was Pagan against Jew, more so than Christian against Jew,,, which came later. The Majority (Pagan) Culture was about to wipe out the minority (Jew) culture and religion,,, hey I can admit that,,, history you know...
So Today, we have a BIG OPPORTUNITY to do differently that before, we can learn from, respect each other in ways that our forefathers/mothers were not able to do. This is BIG.
I am always amazed that I ,, the Pagan,, alot of times KNOW MORE about someones religion than they do themselves,, which I find sad,, not proud I know more. Christians are very much less in tune with their history than most I think,, they tend to accept way to much on Faith, and don't expect to have to dig for the truth since they already think they have it... (generally, not a put down at all Christian friends) So, I think that Comparative study is something that should bring us closer as HUMANS. I love learning ,,, and I mean really learning,, because before I solidified into a ''pagan'' I LIVED many of the Religions I explored,, that sometimes is the only way to find out... So, I have lived, Christian(various), Jewish, Mormon, Penecostal, Buddhist, Hindu,Sufi, Muslim, Science of the Mind, various Native American and many other Paths before I and my GOD/DESS decided what was best for me. I took the step to learn more before making a commitment,,, and still explore,, because my Deities allow that for me. So I say, Step out of your shells people and learn about your neighbors beliefs.
Human first,
scott
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