War on Christmas (in Israel)

RISHON LEZION, Israel — In the United States, the so-called “War on Christ­mas” is com­monly known as a polit­i­cal move­ment by the Reli­gious Right.

Well, the Jew­ish state is see­ing the flip side of the reli­gious coin — to keep Christ­mas “out”:

The “Lobby for Jew­ish val­ues” this week began oper­at­ing against restau­rants and hotels that plan to put up Christ­mas trees and other Chris­t­ian sym­bols ahead of Christ­mas and the civil New Year.

Accord­ing to the lobby’s Chair­man, Ofer Cohen, they have received back­ing by the rab­bis, “and we are even con­sid­er­ing pub­lish­ing the names of the busi­nesses that put up Chris­t­ian sym­bols ahead of the Chris­t­ian hol­i­day and call for a boy­cott against them.”

Fliers and ads dis­trib­uted among the pub­lic read, “The peo­ple of Israel have given their soul over the years in order to main­tain the val­ues of the Torah of Israel and the Jew­ish identity.

“You should also con­tinue to fol­low this path of the Jew­ish people’s tra­di­tion and not give in to the clown­ish atmos­phere of the end of the civil year. And cer­tainly not help those busi­nesses that sell or put up the fool­ish sym­bols of Christianity.”

The Jerusalem Rab­binate also works each year to ensure restau­rants and hotels receiv­ing kosher cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the Jerusalem Reli­gious Coun­cil do not put up Chris­t­ian symbols.

Accord­ing to a senior offi­cial in the kashrut depart­ment, this is done each year con­sen­su­ally, but that busi­nesses which do not meet this require­ment may find their kashrut cer­tifi­cate revoked.

I was on my way to a New Year’s Eve party in a local pub last year when I stopped in a kiosk. To my sur­prise, the con­ve­nience store was decked out in dec­o­ra­tions that would nor­mally be seen at Christ­mas in the United States. And then I remem­bered that the own­ers of the kiosk were Chris­tians who had emi­grated from the Soviet Union under Israel’s Law of Return, which allows any­one who has at least one Jew­ish grand­par­ent to become an auto­matic, Israeli cit­i­zen even it that per­son is not Jew­ish him­self. Since I had always been friendly with them when I lived in Ris­hon Lezion, I posed for a picture.

The Israeli city of Ris­hon Lezion is nick­named “Russ­ian Lezion” for a rea­son — some­times you are more likely to hear Russ­ian than Hebrew in the city cen­ter. As a result, there are more than a few shops with Christ­mas items.

That night, I went to the pub for the New Year’s Eve party, and Christ­mas was a theme, if under­stated enough in a way that the sec­u­lar Israelis there might not have known the con­no­ta­tions that a native Amer­i­can would have seen.

The bar was dec­o­rated with red bal­loons and other items of a sim­i­lar color. More than a few bar­tenders and guests wore Santa hats and sim­i­lar items. After every­one fired flares at mid­night, a reg­u­lar patron dressed as Santa Claus sat on a chair behind the bar and threw gifts into the crowd (see the pic­ture at the top of the post). I did not want to drag the party down, but I had wanted to ask my friends there if they knew that the color red in Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions, at least accord­ing to what I had heard, sym­bol­izes the blood of Jesus, espe­cially on candy canes.

Although there were a few grum­blers in the bar who insisted that every­one should be hon­or­ing “Sylvester” with its neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions rather than the sec­u­lar New Year, nearly every­one just wanted to have fun. Amer­i­can Jews grow up in an envi­ron­ment in which they feel alien­ated dur­ing Christ­mas (how far can one go in par­tic­i­pat­ing in hol­i­day activ­i­ties with­out appear­ing to endorse the the­o­log­i­cal theme?), but those born and raised in Israel never had to deal with the com­pli­cated feel­ings that arise since they grew up in a Jew­ish state. The clothes and dec­o­ra­tions are merely yet another excuse for sec­u­lar Israelis to throw a party, and they are suf­fi­ciently West­ern­ized through tele­vi­sion and films to be famil­iar with the stan­dard hol­i­days and asso­ci­ated themes.

And party they did. The bar was not kosher, so it was in no dan­ger of los­ing a kashrut (kosher) cer­tifi­cate — espe­cially since Ris­hon Lezion is rel­a­tively far from Jerusalem. But I left with lin­ger­ing ques­tions. The sec­u­lar, West­ern­ized cel­e­bra­tion of the hol­i­day sea­son — and the rab­bini­cal efforts to clamp down on the phe­nom­e­non — is yet another exam­ple of one of the cen­tral para­doxes fac­ing Israel.

The Jew­ish state wants to be two things: a Jew­ish state and a free, demo­c­ra­tic state. But what is the solu­tion when these com­pet­ing pri­or­i­ties con­flict? If all Israelis start cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas (either as Chris­tians or as sec­u­lar­ized rev­el­ers), then it will arguably no longer be a Jew­ish state. If the gov­ern­ment bans every­one from hav­ing any­thing to do with the hol­i­day, then it will no longer be a free state.

Else­where: A related post on this issue. Hat tip: Dov Bear. Brad Hirschfield writes that these Jews are doing to Chris­tians what Chris­tians did to them cen­turies ago.