Jews with Christmas/Holiday trees
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
I haven't been posting much on this thread. It took 2 seconds to find that article. I just wanted to point out that it's a little ridiculous to get this worked up about a tree with some ornaments on it. |
Anonymous
Hmmm. For starters 19th century was characterized by high levels of both antisemitism (e.g., Hep-Hep riots, lack of emancipation until 1870s.) and attendant assimilation to avoid the antisemitism, e.g., decorating Christmas trees, conversions, intermarriage, and otherwise and trying to be "good Germans." Then in the 1930s, the "good Germans" decided the Jews were not Germans at all, and murdered them in mass numbers. So, yes, the Holocaust has a lot of significance on Jewish identity - and whether or not to have a Christmas tree is a debate about Jewish identity. |
Anonymous
| Wow, you actually listed intermarriage as one of the sins of the century |
Anonymous
Why is this a shock to you? Jews are all about self preservation. I don't understand why so many Christians, Muslims, and others get their feelings hurt when they discover that Jews don't have any love for them. Jews are all about Jews. Advancing Jews, marrying Jews, upholding Jews, etc. Christians and other outsiders don't coincide with Jews. I don't care how nice or cordial a Jew is towards you. You have to realize that its all about them and them alone. Jews are taught for the time that they are born that it is them against the world. Intermarriage is a threat to Jews and many will disown relatives or ostracize those who don't come into the fold. Intermarriage goes against the tribal mentality and we can't have any of that. Do all Jews think this way? Of course not. However, many do and their opposition to intermarriage is really about outsiders invading their tribe and stealing one of their own away. Some Jews feel like everytime a Jewish person intermarries it negatively impacts preserving their culture. |
Anonymous
not the poster above, but it wasnt a list of sins but of steps to assimilate. |
Anonymous
Plenty of Jews who give to charities that help non Jews, who work for causes to help non-Jews, want to preserve the survival of jews as a people and a culture. Our desire to preserve ourselves as a people (which many but not all jews see intermarriage as a threat to) has nothing to do with whether or not we love others or or work to help others. It may be that you havent thought this through. Or it may be you reasons for twisting this into "its all about them" is due to your being one of those parts of the world that is against them. |
Anonymous
| Intermarriage today can, doesn’t have to, mean assimilation. In 19th century Germany, intermarriage was assimilation, because, e.g., in many cases resulting children were baptized. |
Anonymous
You need help. |
Anonymous
Its about assimilation - its partly about Jesus, partly about Santa (originally a Christian saint, BTW) and its about gifts (the giving of which at this time of year commemorates the gifts given to Jesus as recorded in Christian scripture). Which is why, on the whole American Jews as a community have rejected it even when they have not rejected all gentile "secular" customs. What we are being told is no, you don't have to have a tree if say you don't like pine needles, or need space in your living room for your lego collection, or whatever, but that its NOT legitimate to reject a tree on, you know, JEWISH grounds, because of some debate among Christians about whether the tree is a pagan survival or not. |
Anonymous
|
Why would a Jewish person care how others celebrate Christmas or where the tradition comes from?
And why the focus on shunning everything related to the way things are done in the land? That sounds almost cult like segregation mentally |
Anonymous
Because the “way things are done in the land” is a symbol of a religion that is not ours. I’m not trying to tuck anyone’s yum; I understand why some Jews—especially intermarried Jews—have Christmas trees. But there’s a difference between the original intent of a symbol and what a symbol grows to mean. And the tree/lights/Santa mean “Christmas.” Which is a holiday I don’t celebrate. |
Anonymous
Much of this is absurd and offensive. I am a part of a (very) minority culture religiously here in the middle of the Midwest. I find comfort in members of my congregation, the same way that people seek out anyone who has similar interests to them—especially when people with those interests might be hard to find. But the majority of my friends have never been Jewish. I donate to non-Jewish and secular charities. AND I’m an intermarried person working hard to raise my child Jewish. In fact, many of my Jewish friends are doing the same. None of us look down on Christians, Muslims, Hindus, or any other members of our community. We just do our own thing and educate our children the best we can. Just like everyone else. And while we might at some point, we don’t have a Christmas tree in our house. |
Anonymous
I must again point out the massive flaw in your reasoning. If a symbol can "grow to mean" one thing from another, why can't that happen again? Why can't it go from pagan to mostly religious to non-religious? |
Anonymous
|
14:45, you sound like you have an ax to grind.
I’m Jewish and we enjoy our Christmas tree, which was stolen from paganism. Moreover, we don’t view as a birthday nod to Jesus, who apparently was born in the summertime anyway. |
Anonymous
|
Reindeer, gnomes and elves are not mentioned in any holy book. Neither are fairies or Disney characters
Is snowman ok? Did you know that a reindeer has a split hoof and chews it's cud You can purchase reindeer meat in northern regions. |