Reply to Jewish Families: What are your holiday traditions?

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Jewish Families: What are your holiday traditions?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Note

You have to decide what kind of cultural Jew you are. When I was a wee lad, cultural Jew meant national/Zionist Jew - in Israel secular Jews often emphasized the heroic/military/national rebellion aspect of the holiday (as opposed to the miracle of the lights)  But that kind of secular Jewishness is not out of fashion.

If you are a Yiddishist Jew you can sing hanukkah songs in Yiddish instead of Hebrew.

[/quote]

Huh? You don't have to "decide" anything. Just do what you want! I don't fully understand the OP's question - are you asking what we do on Chanukah? Or what we do over the "holiday" period? I'm not sure if you're distinguishing between the two or not, but I am, just to point out that Chanukah falls on different days each year. This year it is exactly when Christmas is, but sometimes it is right at the beginning of December or even end of November, and so by the time you get to the "holiday" period it's all over. For Chanukah, we do the traditional things - lighting the chanukiah, singing Chanukah songs, we have latkes and doughnuts and the kids get small gifts and chocolate coins. We don't do anything for Christmas and we don't have any decorations or anything. As the PP said, Chanukah is a minor Jewish festival, and we celebrate all the others too so it's not really a big deal for us. We enjoy the Christmassy sparkle out on the streets of our neighborhood/stores, etc, but we don't have any of that in our house. However, lighting the Chanukiah and having a house filled with the smell of latkes makes me feel very festive! If you haven't already, get "The Latke Who Wouldn't Stop Screaming" - it's funny and deals with this question, and will be enjoyable for your kid when s/he's a bit older. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics