An Outsider Looking In

This has always been a difficult time of year for me. As a Jew, I have always felt somewhat separated from the mainstream culture. But the Christmas season is always the toughest and it has become more difficult lately. When I was growing up in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the community was basically Catholic and Jewish. In a town of only two square miles there were several small Orthodox shuls as well as a fairly large Conservative temple. There was a stand-alone Hebrew school and a Jewish Community Center. Thus, even though the churches outnumbered the synagogues by a significant factor, I was not alone. These were the days when Christmas trees, Christmas decorations and even Christmas-themed class assignments were still allowed in the public schools. The choir sang Christmas carols; the real ones like "O Holy Night," "Away In The Manger" and "What Child Is This?" You get the idea. I felt OK about it since the choir director was also the music teacher at the Hebrew School. The phrase Politically Correct had not yet been invented.

I played along and even argued that I should get to decorate the class Christmas tree because I didn't get to do one at home. However, there were enough other Jewish families in town and I had enough Jewish classmates and teachers that Chanukah was recognized as well. The nice thing about it was that we all went to each other's houses and shared in each other's holidays. Ask any Christian who grew up in a major metropolitan area like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, etc. and they will be able to tell you about lighting the Menorah, playing with the dreidel and eating potato latkes. Now, the greater culture hardly recognized that any other holiday existed. You never saw Chanukah themed merchandise in the stores, the card shops had maybe two different Chanukah cards, there were no Chanukah specials or commercials on television and every business would greet you with a hearty "Merry Christmas!" We lived in a parallel world while the society around us celebrated.

It was even more difficult for my children. Growing up in Arlington, Texas they did not have the critical mass of other Jews around them. For most of their education, they were not just the only Jewish child in their class, but often the only ones in the whole school. I made a point of going into their classes every year reading a book about Chanukah, teaching the children to play dreidel and serving potato latkes. In most cases this was the only exposure these children had to these experiences. When my children sang in the school choir the program had moved on to "Holiday" concerts where non-offensive songs like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Winter Wonderland" were sung. They would throw in one or two Chanukah songs along with ones for Kwanzaa and one in Spanish to cover all the bases. But everyone knew that the program and celebrations were really about Christmas. Keywords like "diversity" were popular and there was some attempt to be inclusive. 

One year we had a funny experience. Our children were going to a small private school. Our son was in first grade and our daughter in Pre-K. We got a call from the owner and principal of the school. When that happens it is not usually good news. She told us that the school was putting on a Holiday pageant and they wanted our son to be Santa Claus. Was that alright with us? They were being sensitive to the fact that we might object. In fact, we found it very amusing that the only Jewish boy in the class was going to play Jolly Old St. Nick! We celebrated Chanukah at home and they shared it with our extended family and the other children at the temple. But, they also came to realize that they were outsiders.

Times have changed for both the better and the worse. The general culture has come to recognize, if only in a  small way, that other holidays take place during this time of year. I can actually go into a regular store and find some Chanukah items. It still pales in comparison to the number of trees, wreaths, ornaments, wrapping paper and various other items available if you celebrate Christmas, but at least it's there. On a recent visit to a local chain store, I stopped an employee and asked him if they had any Chanukah merchandise. He directed me to a small end cap, but even more significantly, he knew what I was asking for without me having to explain it. That is definitely progress.

However, as there has been progress in acknowledging that everyone does not celebrate the same holiday, there has also been a backlash. Two years ago one of the largest churches in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex created a "Naughty" and "Nice" list on their web site. Now you'd think that this would be about people who did good deeds during this season as opposed to those who acted like those great misanthropes the Grinch and Scrooge. But, no! The purpose of the list was to get businesses to stop "dissing" Christmas. If a place of business (store, restaurant, etc.) had their employees say Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings instead of Merry Christmas, they were put on the "Naughty" list! I see Facebook posts saying things like "This Person Says Merry Christmas" or "Put Christ back in Christmas."

Now it seems to me, the way to put religious feeling back into any holiday is to focus on what the holiday signifies in your own life rather than on what others are doing.. Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. It is supposed to be a season of peace, joy and goodwill toward men. It is a time for families to get together. It is a time to attend church. How is any of this advanced by having an argument over how to greet someone or fighting over a sale item in a store? 

Chanukah celebrates the restoration of religious freedom at a time when a ruling power tried to suppress the practice of Judaism. Now it is lovely to light candles, give gifts, eat festive foods and spend time with family.. But that's not what this commemoration is all about for me. Don't get me wrong. I love those things and the family traditions that accompany them. But there is a more important message of Chanukah. That is that religious freedom and acceptance of difference is a key element of a civil society and an essential right of every person. We are stronger when we combine our different ideas, talents and values. 

So, Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Joyous Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad, Happy Winter Solstice and Season's Greetings. 

If The World Ends Tomorrow

Well, it's a little after 6:00 p.m. Central Standard Time on December 20, 2012. If the doomsayers are correct, the world only has a few more hours to go. How should I spend these last hours. What last words should I leave? Who would see them? Well, here goes...

If I could do anything I want with my last hours, I would spend it with those I love. Not all of them are here with me. If I truly believed the world was coming to an end, I would gather them all around me. Would I use the time to make amends? Ask forgiveness for past wrongs? Get the answers to questions I've longed to ask? No. I would just enjoy being with them. Why waste our last precious hours with recriminations and regrets?

If I could leave a time capsule with some things that represented my life here on earth here is what would be in it: pictures of my loved ones, a couple of index cards with my favorite recipes, some fur that I've combed and saved from my cats, a couple of well-read books and the brass Shabbat candlesticks that have been passed down from mother to daughter through five generations of my family.

What would I tell these future archaeologists about this world of ours? Yes, there was war and famine and anguish. People went hungry and horrible deeds were committed in the name of science, religion and greed. We never came close to achieving world peace, learning to live within our means or even finding the cure for the common cold. On the other hand, we created great works of art, beautiful music and fascinating literature. We built great cities, plumbed the depths of the earth and explored the stars. Technology allowed us to reach far beyond our physical limitations. We stared into our souls and tried to understand the nature of our existence.

If I could leave some words of wisdom to whoever discovers my relics, I would tell them that despite all the problems that our world had, it was still a beautiful and magical place. Love may not have conquered all, but it covered a lot. Interpersonal relationships, messy and complicated as they are, formed the net around which we built our lives.

What I am really afraid of is that these visitors from a distant planet will find bobble-head dolls in the wreckage and think they were religious idols, believe that our culture was dominated by a strange, mutated race called the Kardashians and that our main goals in life were to be richer, thinner and have more hair. Oh well, it could be worse.

See you on the flip side....or will I?

Is Nowhere Safe?

Let the questions begin. How can anyone walk into a primary school and kill children and teachers? What was he thinking? Could it have been prevented? Is this a problem of gun control, a lowering of moral standards, a case of undiagnosed or untreated mental illness, or an act of    G-d?  How do we emotionally deal with this? Most critically, why did these innocents have to die?

I don't have any of these answers. All of these questions have been swirling in my brain since I heard about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut this morning. Even more so after the shooting at the Clackamas mall outside Portland, Oregon on Wedndesday. When that happened, I posted a link about the event on Facebook with the comment, "Is nowhere safe?"

After 9/11, anti-terrorism efforts were focused on transportation systems; planes, subways, etc.
There are metal detectors at the entrances of many public buildings. When I go to a Rangers game at the Ballpark in Arlington, I must surrender my purse to be inspected. All of these measures only give us the illusion of security. In most of our daily activities, we are in public settings in which we are unavoidably vulnerable.

Regrettably, we are no longer surprised when we hear about a shooting at a school. From Charles Whitman at the University of Texas to Columbine to Virginia Tech to today's horror, our response to a school shooting is not shock, but, "Oh no, not again." It has become all too commonplace. Today's shooting makes us stop and take notice, but only because of the body count and the age of the victims. Since Columbine, 284 people have been killed in K-12 school shootings. Just this year, there have been 8 other deaths in school-related incidents. Most of them we hear nothing about. This is not a new phenomenon. The earliest known shooting to happen on school property in America was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape American Indians entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children.

For many years, I told people that one of my nightmare scenarios was someone coming into a darkened movie theater and opening fire. Then on July 20th of this year that's exactly what happened leaving 12 dead and 58 injured. There have been five other public mass shootings in the U.S. this year. They occurred in a spa, a cafe, a Sikh temple and a sign company resulting in 28 deaths and 9 injuries. I repeat my question, "Is nowhere safe." The answer, sadly, is no.

Once we accept that fact, how do we deal with it?  Do we barricade ourselves and our children in our homes and order everything over the Internet? Do we incarcerate anyone who we think might commit this kind of act? Do we arm ourselves or ban all weapons? Even all of these extreme actions would not keep us safe. Most female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner. Most of the children who are killed, have been murdered by a parent. There is no way to guarantee the safety of yourself or your loved ones.

So, what do I recommend? Cherish those you love. Live your life. Hold your head up. Go to school, to the movies, out to eat, to your house of worship. Take reasonable precautions and then move on. Remember the sentiments that were expressed after the tragedy of 9/11. The only way the forces of evil win is if we allow them to change our way of life.