You mean ... ?

I had to share this. It is from a friend who is an Eastern Orthodox Christian in North Carolina.

A couple of weeks ago, at Church, we were discussing “winter customs” in the adult Sunday School. We spent about half of one session on Hanukkah: dreidles, candles, 8-day-oil miracles, doughnuts, history, the books of the Macabbees, etc. When it was all over and Father was putting the menorah up on the piano one of the people in class suddenly asked, “You mean Hanukkah isn’t the Jewish way of commemorating Jesus’ birth?” (We did, in fact, go over the whole thing again.)

It reminds me of my Jewish roommate from Michigan State, Gene Friedman. Gene's father was Jewish but his mother had been raised Catholic. I don't think she ever converted, but Gene was raised Jewish, more because religion was important to his mother than it was to his father. He certainly didn't keep kosher when I knew him or maintain any other external religious life.

Around Christmas, she always wanted to put up Hanukkah stuff, including a "Hanukkah bush" as a substitute for a Christmas tree. Gene's father hated it. I think maybe Mrs. Friedman never quite caught on that Hanukkah was NOT the Jewish way of celebrating a Christian holiday, but is in fact a celebration of Jews refusing to surrender their own faith to adopt the practices of a dominant culture.