Judaism and Christmas

 

A Canadian musical documentary, "Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas," explores the contribution of Jewish song writers to Christmas celebration in the USA. The press release summarizes the documentary saying: "Set almost entirely in a Chinese restaurant, Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas is an offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream - a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe in it."  https://dreamingofajewishchristmas.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/DreamingofaJewishChristmas-PressKit-Nov2017.pdf

While it makes a good contribution on Jewish music history, it is misleading by claiming that Jewish song writers, like Berlin, contributed to the secularization of Christmas in the USA. This is incorrect. Christmas in the USA as well as in Europe was becoming a secular event centuries before. This was one of the reasons Puritan churches refused to celebrate Christmas. Only the Orthodox and Catholic churches kept it as a mass in memory of Jesus (called Christ), therefore Christmas. No, Jewish people did not make the traditional Christian religious celebration remembering the birth of Jesus of Nazareth (although anachronistic). The film is available at https://vimeo.com/483748540/dd3e49c4ec 

Our concern is not so much with the secularization of other religious traditions. We must be concerned with the secularization of our religious festivals. Many of these ancient festivals were secular traditions which on the hands of ancient Israel became an opportunity of worship and honouring the Holy One of Israel. Today there is a tragic trend of secularization of many of these festivals, especially in Israel. We must remember the words from Leviticus 23, which starts with these words:

וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יי אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר׃

The LORD spoke to Moshe, saying:

דַּבֵּ֞ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֲלֵהֶ֔ם מוֹעֲדֵ֣י יי אֲשֶׁר־תִּקְרְא֥וּ אֹתָ֖ם מִקְרָאֵ֣י קֹ֑דֶשׁ אֵ֥לֶּה הֵ֖ם מוֹעֲדָֽי׃

Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: These are My fixed times, the fixed times of the LORD, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions.