More in ‘Christmas’

On the day after Christmas, the New York Times published a sympathetic article on the emotional bind that many former Christians who have converted to Judaism find themselves in during December 25th:
For thousands of people who convert to Judaism, Christmas is a difficult day of balancing what was once intimately theirs but now represents, in ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, Marissa Brostoff presents 1920s cartoonist Milt Gross’s Yiddish-inflected version of “The Night Before Christmas”—“De Night in de Front from Chreesmas”—read by a Yiddish actor and accompanied by Gross’s drawings. Music columnist Alexander Gelfand profiles a klezmer quartet started by two brothers whose father lost his family in the Holocaust. David Lehman ...

“The two holidays that celebrate the divinity of Christ—the divinity that’s the very heart of the Jewish rejection of Christianity—and what does Irving Berlin do? He de-Christs them both! Easter he turns into a fashion show and Christmas into a holiday about snow.” Philip Roth, in Operation Shylock, was referring to Berlin’s “Easter Parade” and, ...

For many immigrants and their children in the era of mass Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe, the ubiquitous Yiddish accent was a source of shame and a barrier to upward mobility. For the cartoonist and animator Milt Gross, that accent was the funniest thing he had ever heard.
In his cartoons, Gross, born in 1895 to ...

Today, Slate discussed Nittel Nacht, the unofficial Jewish “holiday” that takes place on Christmas Eve. Jews celebrate Nittel Nacht, according to the article, by avoiding Torah study, lest the spiritual joy it produces rub off on nearby Christians. Instead, Jews play games like chess (or dreidel—some scholars believe Hanukkah’s proximity to December 24th explains the ...

• The iconic wrought-iron sign that greeted new arrivals at Auschwitz with the words “Arbeit macht Frei” has been stolen. Police suspect neo-Nazis; the theft could be tied to Germany’s recent decision to commit over $80 million to the Polish site’s restoration. [Times of London]
• A left-wing Israeli lawyer living in Maryland pleaded guilty in ...

Garrison Keillor, self-appointed cultural representative of regular old Americans, ruffled some feathers yesterday with a mildly xenophobic rant about Christmas. After lambasting a Unitarian church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for “spiritual piracy and cultural elitism”—tweaking the lyrics of “Silent Night” for a singalong, in layman’s terms—he turned his ire in a different direction:
And all those lousy ...

• A Maryland rabbi uncovered the speech Judah Maccabee gave while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize over 2000 years ago. Its argument that peace sometimes requires war may sound familiar to those who have paid attention to more recent, and real-life, Nobel addresses. [JTA]
• A group of liberal activists wants Hadassah Lieberman—wife of Sen. Joe—booted ...

The Annotated Child: Coping with the December dilemma

• Citing the high cost to taxpayers due to his extensive security detail, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his planned trip to the U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen. [Haaretz]
• A right-wing chain letter beams over the Jews’ achievements … as a way of putting down those of Muslims. [The Awl]
• The ten best Christmas ...