A Rabbi’s Take on Christmas: Speaking at the Rotary Club of Kenton, 17th December 2024

My Brent Multifaith Forum colleague and good friend, Narinder Singh Mudhar, has asked me to offer you all a ‘Rabbi’s View of Christmas’ and, moreover, to speak for no more than ten minutes!

I am reminded of the story concerning the first-century sage, Rabbi Hillel, who was reputedly asked by a Roman to teach everything about Judaism while standing on one foot. Hillel paused and said, ‘Do not treat others as you would not like to be treated yourself. That is the beginning and the end of the matter.’ So, the golden rule, expressed positively as ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. This ethic is also invoked, for example, in the Christian Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Indeed, it is the ethical basis of faith and humanistic values such as kindness, justice, and mercy.

In medieval times, Christmas in Europe was a day much feared by Jews as violent persecutions often occurred. It was a time of remaining at home and hiding from the mobs, as Jews living centuries later were considered fully guilty for the death of Jesus.

Let’s fast-forward, however, to late nineteenth-century America when the often observed practice of Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas Day began partly due to the proximity of Jewish and Chinese American immigrant communities in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. To be sure, religiously observant Jews criticised their co-religionists dining in Chinese restaurants as violating the laws concerning keeping to a kosher diet. Nevertheless, such activities spread due to very many American Jews shedding orthodox ritual observances coupled with the convenience of Chinese restaurants remaining open at all hours. Even today, in big cities it is evident that Chinese restaurants are filled with Jewish diners on Christmas Day as a celebration of ‘otherness’.

This ‘tradition’ has been included in the repertoires of Jewish ‘Borscht Belt’ comedians. Amazingly, during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan held in 2010, Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham asked where she was on Christmas Day. After bursting out with laughter, Kagan answered, ‘You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant’. Even the conservative Senator Graham acknowledged this comedic response as a ‘great answer’.

In this country, we could probably extend the custom to Jews eating curries on Christmas. Such restaurants and takeaway facilities are open. Most Jews would argue that there’s nothing non-kosher about a vegi-curry. (As a progressive Jew, I would add that Halal is just fine when it comes to eating meat.)

Turning from food to music, did you know that some of the most popular Christmas songs were written and composed by Jews? For example: Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer (Johnny Marks, 1949); It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Edward Pola and George Wyle, 1963); Bing Crosby’s hit song White Christmas (Irving Berlin, 1942); and The Christmas Song: Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire (Mel Torme and Robert Wells, 1949).

And what about the notion of ‘Chrismukkah’ or the combining of secular elements of Christmas and Hanukkah? A significant number of contemporary UK Jewish households have a Christmas tree (AKA ‘Hanukkah bush’). Furthermore, this is also a time for many Jews to gather family members and friends together for a festive meal on the big day and to exchange gifts.

The whole ‘business’, as it were, of giving gifts during this season is also a tradition traceable to the nineteenth-century when leading department stores in New York City promoted this innovation in retailing. Since then, international commerce became utterly dependent on this phenomenon and it also spread to Hanukkah as Jewish parents didn’t want their children to feel left out. Many Christians –as well as those of other faiths– decry what they see as the excessive materialism of the season. A few days ago, I admit to having felt queasy while walking down Bond Street and observing the over-the-top displays outside the posh shops. At a time of global warming, never mind the ever-widening income gap in the UK, such luxury and misallocation of resources takes us far away from the most essential ethical values as taught by both Rabbi Hillel and Jesus.

There are two teachings of Jesus, in my view, that are of essential importance at this juncture. First, even while suffering the worst of pain, he said, in effect, no matter what you do to me I will not take on the mentality of a victim and I refuse to be someone who is hard-done-by nor will I transmit my trauma onto others. This is a psychological insight so relevant to how abusively individuals, groups, and nations behave towards each other.

Second, Jesus kept company with outsiders, those who were generally despised by conventional society. He was a radical prophet who challenged power and the status quo. He practiced the value of love and was the role model for my hero, Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, a great leader in the struggle for human rights in America. Sadly, this is a struggle that remains all too unfinished in America and in so many other settings in the world.

In this rabbi’s view, Christmas is a time that should especially provide for the the renewal of the most essential of universal values: empathy, love, sharing, hospitality, kindness, peace, and dignity. It is a time for being a light unto others during the darkness of winter in our deeply troubled and pain-filled world. It is a time for seeking humans to become significantly more capable of standing in each other’s shoes.

–Rabbi Dr Frank Dabba Smith