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DS attends Jewish preschool. Wants to celebrate Jewish holidays.
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Anonymous
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DS attends a Jewish preschool while we work. He’s attended since he was a baby. He wants to celebrate Jewish holidays, especially Hanukkah, Passover, Purim, Yom Kippur & Rosa Hashanah.
We are not Jewish and anything I know about Judaism is what I’ve learned from his preschool. We are irreligious and celebrate a secular Christmas. Is it appropriate for non-Jews to carry out Jewish traditions? Most of his friends from school are Jewish and I think he feels left out? |
Anonymous
| Read about the holidays yourself, get some kid friendly books and read with him and talk about it. Do you have Jewish friends? They could talk to him about how they celebrate...... If you are not Jewish I don’t see how you would actually celebrate , but I don’t get how you celebrate Christmas if you don’t believe either so maybe that’s just me. |
Anonymous
| He is in preschool. Just redirect him after saying you aren’t Jewish. |
Anonymous
You really don’t know how people celebrate secular Christmas? |
Anonymous
I know a bunch of people on dcum do it..... but no I don’t understand it. I celebrate it because we are Christian and it’s the day our faith celebrated the birth of Jesus. If you don’t believe in Jesus I don’t get why you celebrate other than to follow everyone else and support commercialism.......... |
Anonymous
+1. Personally I would be really weirded out celebrating a holiday of a religion I didn't believe in. And spare me the "well it's actually a pagan holiday" crap because a) you're not pagan and b) a lot of Christmas celebrations AREN'T pagan. |
Anonymous
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In my Christian home, growing up:
We celebrated passover with unleavened bread. We sometimes celebrated a seder with a nearby community. I've taken my kids to a Chabad Hanukah celebration that happened to be happening at an ice skating rink where we were planning on going. They got light up dreidels. It was fun. So, having done this, I think it's fine to do a watered down celebration. Light Hanukah candles at Hanukah. In a normal year, go to a chabad hanukah celebration. I was never confused about what our religion was even though we noted other faiths' holidays in a secular way. |
Anonymous
We put up a Christmas tree and exchange gifts without the Jesus stuff |
Anonymous
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I think there are ways of exploring Judaism in a secular way, such as by eating challah or apples/honey around Rosh Hashanah.
Lighting a menorah isn’t a secular thing. It’s a celebration of the miracle of light and there are associated prayers. It’s not like having a Christmas tree. So while there are secular things you can do, just be careful that you aren’t inadvertently treading into things that really aren’t secular at all. |
Anonymous
Lighting Hanukkah candles isn’t at all secular. |
Anonymous
There are a lot of giant menorah displays in public spaces around this time of year; should they all be taken down? |
Anonymous
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Do you have any close friends or family who are Jewish? Maybe they could include your son in their celebrations. There are probably also a lot of virtual celebrations going on now due to COVID that you could let him join and participate in online. You could accompany him or not.
As a Jew, I am not offended by non-Jews celebrating Jewish holidays in their home, but it seems awkward for you or your husband to lead such a celebration if you don't really know or care about it. Whereas letting your son join celebrations led by Jews, just like you let him go to Jewish preschool, seems more authentic and less awkward. Something to think about also, is how you will feel if his interest in Judaism persists beyond preschool. For most kids in his situation that won't happen, but it's a possibility, especially if one or two of his close friends in elementary are Jews. Would it bother you if his interest deepened as he got older and became more serious? |
Anonymous
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No, it's not appropriate. We are celebrating being attacked and murdered for our religion when we celebrate a holiday (except the Jewish New Year) for the most part. It gets treated like a fun thing to do to spice of people's lives when non-Jews celebrate. Also, they get it wrong every time.
Like an acquaintance of mine who decided to celebrate Hanukah because "this year has been so rough" and she slapped Shabbat Shalom on her Happy Hanukah poster board, even though it ... wasn't shabbat. It was just a term she knew that was associated with jewish people so she included it. |
Anonymous
| Doesn't he get to celebrate at school? That should be enough. You can't co-opt other people's religious holidays just because they look fun. |
Anonymous
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If your family wanted to join a JCC, there would probably be a lot of events there for children preceding these holidays with crafts and holiday foods. He might enjoy that, and many JCC's have excellent gym and pool facilities that you as the parents might enjoy.
It's not unusual for non-Jews to belong to a JCC. My local one is about 30-40% non-Jewish membership. |