MY JEWISH CHRISTMAS made this Yid kid more right in her own skin
By Marcia Singer, MSW
Christmas this past year was special for me: It made me more Jewish! It made this Yid kid more right in her own skin, giving me back some missing soul pieces. The holiday was a kind of “finding your roots” occasion that left me feeling more myself, more happily me. I fit myself better. Perhaps now I’ll fit in with you better as well.
It was so different, growing up Jewish in the 50s in Wichita, KS. It had the opposite effect on me. Either felt invisible, awkward and overlooked, or I was sticking out like a sore thumb. Or a Jewish nose. I was often uncomfortable about being different, and being a member of a tribe that was not permitted to join the Wichita Country Club made things worse. We Yids were outcasts, we had to stay confined to our own country club. My Jewishess often embarrassed me: like when a teacher would ask all the children to identify whether they were Protestants, Catholics or Jews by raising their little hands. I was the only Jew, I felt stared at, my cheeks reddened.
I was reminded recently about being taught at Sunday School that we Jews should never actually speak Jesus Christ’s name. (Wish I could remember why.) It was taboo. Sometimes I would forget, like at Christmas, when all of us in the Choraleers high school choir sang at a Christmas program. Oy. That was challenging — not to say Jesus’s name. Or get noticed avoiding it. But nothing bad ever happened to me when I uttered it. God didn’t yell or strike me down or anything. My mother though, got very upset with me: How could her daughter lift her voice so full throttle to sing carols, but not for her own Hebrew traditional songs?? Gosh, Mommy, the Gentile music was so much more exciting, beautiful to me, with voices all singing together, the harmonies… I felt so confused, so guilty. Angry?
One of my worst memories was running home one afternoon, being chased by the Angulo kids, from down the block. We were supposedly friends, between the ages of maybe 7 and twelve, but today, they were taunting, yelling, “You’re a Christ killer! Christ killer, Christ Killer!” I ran home crying. This incident may have prompted a conversation with my scholarly father, who reassured that the Jews couldn’t have possibly killed Jesus, because it was Passover, and the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court, would not have met at that time. Wouldn’t have held a special session to condemn Jesus…
I felt a little better… Temporarily. But even studying Hebrew and being the valedictorian of my graduating class, did nada for my actual spiritual needs. The Judaic god of my youth was male, temperamental, demanding and all powerful, occasionally merciful if you were lucky. I needed more.
Like a lot of smart, thinking Jewish young people, who didn’t find spirituality in their hometown traditions, and who didn’t live in New York surrounded by other Jews (Wichita’s Jewry was one tenth of one percent of its population), I abandoned my Jewish roots when I went off to college. Or tried to. I found the Eastern religions helpful, became a “JewBu”, and also was drawn to Celtic and Native American spirituality: Goddess energies, web of life, the living spark within all things. Occasionally there would be a positive Jewish influence as well, breaking through: like a Jewish shaman rabbi I tele-interviewed and later met in person, in 2004. It was cool to learn there was an “indigenous Judaism.” The rabbi gave me the example of the Sukkoth ceremony. You hold an esrog –a lemon-like fruit, and a lulav, a bouquet made up of palm, myrtle, and willow branches –female and male symbols. You shake the lulav to send a blessing to all creation, praying and moving in the four directions: Omg, wonderful!
In 2000 I’d also begun performing singing gigs at senior living and skilled nursing communities, for elderly, sometimes senile, wheelchair bound, developmentally challenged persons. Over the next twenty years, up to The Pandemic of March 2020, I must have done at least 150 (200) holiday programs, mostly Christian. This nice Jewish lady also had nice Jewish friends who would come along on Christmas Day to sing carols with the infirm. We were adaptable. We were available. We were willing and happy to help. Who suspected we were Jewish? And did anyone care?
I can count on one hand, the number of times a colleague said, “Happy Hanukkah” — which would’ve been nice, even though I am not an observant Jew. Just to’ve been visible, in a good way. So, I had to satisfy that urge to be noticed, different-but-accepted-in a cool way by making a sidewise comment here and there, during my Christmas or Easter programs about how Jesus was Jewish, or that Irving Berlin wrote White Christmas and Easter Parade. And reveling a bit in my occasional, actual Jewish holiday programs, in our tribe’s genius for the arts, entertainment, unique humor.
But I digress a bit from sharing what was different about this year. How I became more Jewish in a really satisfying way. How I happened to watch a documentary on PBS (love synchronicity), “Dreaming of A Jewish Christmas.” While celebrating the Jewish immigrant songwriters who wrote half of all of America’s most loved secular Christmas tunes (I hadn’t known Berlin’s White Christmas instigated the whole secular thing!!!), the docu also interviewed many Jews who spoke about their relationship with Christmas. Some, like me, were envious or alienated, feeling left out. The filmmakers also discussed how the immigrants, often fleeing persecution in their homelands, wanted to belong, fit in, assimilate. And how dearly they appreciated America (Emma Lazarus speakng for the Statue of Liberty, Berlin’s “God Bless America,”etc.). We Jews were adaptable, clever –determined survivors.
After the blast of new education I was receiving about my songwriter tribe members, I had an AHA: Aha! I have always had not only a need to belong, be accepted AND be Jewish in my own peculiar ways, but my alienation has caused me to be more inclusive of others. To not want anybody I tend to, feel left out — othered. Furthermore, the spiritual leaning I have towards “non-denominational” programs that stress the universality of love as our basic human need and gift to one another –is another form of inclusivity. Born, again, from my own life path of discovering the “namaste”: the light in me that knows the light in you, that makes us one.
So. Now. Knowing that my Jewish kindreds actually co-created, co-opted our American, non-religious Christmas (omg!) through music, films, theater; that our adaptability and need to survive, our desire to fit in, as well as our commandment to be charitable (practice tzedakah); our giving rise to Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth –and awesome ability to withstand oppression and even develop “holocaust humor” — just deeply stirred me this year. Made me actually proud. Helped me understand who I am. Why I am.
And to that I will add that even the full throttled, joy-filled way I attack a Christmas carol (Mommy, are you listening?) is so incredibly Jewish. I’m so sorry I didn’t know any of this while you and Daddy were alive. But I think you would be very pleased about it.
