It's coming up on that time of year again, when well-meaning Christians may risk pulling a trapezoid muscle while vigorously patting themselves on the back for remembering to wish their Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah.
After all, Christmas is a very important Christian holiday. And since Christmas is so very important - why wouldn't there be a Jewish version of it?
The reality is that Hanukkah is one of the least important of the Jewish holidays. Sometimes when a well-intentioned Christian wishes me a Happy Hanukkah, I ask them why the didn't wish me a Happy Sukkot this past fall. The blank stare is always interesting.
The irony of the "Happy Jewish Christmas Hanukkah" syndrome is that Hanukkah itself celebrates a "miracle" associated with a time of Jewish resistance to assimilation. More below the fold...
A summary of the story from jewfaq.org explains it like this:
The story of Chanukkah begins in the reign of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Syria, Egypt and Palestine, but allowed the lands under his control to continue observing their own religions and retain a certain degree of autonomy. Under this relatively benevolent rule, many Jews assimilated much of Hellenistic culture, adopting the language, the customs and the dress of the Greeks, in much the same way that Jews in America today blend into the secular American society.
More than a century later, a successor of Alexander, Antiochus IV was in control of the region. He began to oppress the Jews severely, placing a Hellenistic priest in the Temple, massacring Jews, prohibiting the practice of the Jewish religion, and desecrating the Temple by requiring the sacrifice of pigs (a non-kosher animal) on the altar. Two groups opposed Antiochus: a basically nationalistic group led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah Maccabee, and a religious traditionalist group known as the Chasidim, the forerunners of the Pharisees (no direct connection to the modern movement known as Chasidism). They joined forces in a revolt against both the assimilation of the Hellenistic Jews and oppression by the Seleucid Greek government. The revolution succeeded and the Temple was rededicated.
According to tradition as recorded in the Talmud, at the time of the rededication, there was very little oil left that had not been defiled by the Greeks. Oil was needed for the menorah (candelabrum) in the Temple, which was supposed to burn throughout the night every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah. An eight day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle [the oil].
The assumption that everyone celebrates Christmas, and should therefore be wished a merry one, is quite commonplace. And in comparison, I suppose I should find it a relief when someone wishes me a Happy Extremely Minor Jewish Holiday That They've Only Heard of Because it Falls Near a Major Christian Holiday. But it's not.
So it's heading into that season again. There have been years when I was extremely earnest about this topic and one when I even made a little educational flyer that I was too twitchy to hand out ... and years when I tried not to say anything at all. Years when I wore a Mogen David to work to try to stave off the Merry Christmas wishes and years when that backfired and I ended up being the Pet Jewtm for customers who now knew more about me than I wanted them to.
This year, my (non-Jewish) wife and I have officially kicked off the season by making a little comic strip on the topic:
Hanukkah is Not the Jewish Christmas
I'm going to end with a disclaimer: You get five Jews in a room, and you'll usually have at least eight opinions on any given topic. Please know that I do not speak for other Jews on this issue; I speak only for myself.