Christmas For Jews

BERNARD Avishai loosk at what Christmas means for Chanukah:

It is not a simple matter to be a Jew in America this time of year. Not in Jerusalem either, a few miles from Bethlehem. Christmas, as John Updike writes, is Christianity “at its sweetest.” Many have written, some with an air of sweet resignation, about the yearning Jews feel as the days darken: to share in the melodies, the hearth, the love of the child…

While Christmas brings God down to earth, Chanukah dispatches earthly versions of God to the rubble pile. They need God to feel immanent, nearly material like a Greek deity, while we need God to be thought ineffable and mysterious.

Read on

Anorak

Posted: 19th, December 2008 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)