A Jew For All

Seasons
How faith colors our world—
an American tale.
By Karen Schwartz

T
he holiday season is upon us. From the first fake cobwebs — up too early in October —
straight through to when the neighbors finally take down their Christmas lights, ’tis the
season when America puts Santa first.
And while the mall has made strides to be inclusive by adding a dreidel display, and
few can pinpoint exactly what might make Thanksgiving NOT a Jewish holiday, it’s also
a time of year where it’s easy to feel a pull between the rush of getting wrapped up in the
national “holiday spirit” and the striking sensation that as Jews, they’re not all
necessarily our holidays.
It’s a “healthy and exciting tension we live with,” says Rabbi Eric Grossman about the
space Jews navigate living in a non-Jewish culture. Grossman, who heads the Frankel
Jewish Academy in West Bloomfield, says he doesn’t see it as negative to draw lines
CODY GRIFFITH

as to what fits in with Jewish customs, traditions and values.

20 • November 2010 | Red Thread www.redthread.com

 Still, he has seen that the ways Jews relate to non-Jew-
ish holidays vary greatly, and not just by denomination.
“All of us look at secular holidays with different degrees
of acceptance, so the more a holiday is on the spectrum
of being close to Christianity or paganism, the more dis-
comfort we have with any type of participation,” he says.
But every family handles the holidays differently. While
some eschew the custom of trick-or-treating all together,
skip class valentines and dodge the Easter Bunny, others
try to manage the ubiquitous nature of secular holidays
while focusing on putting Jewish holidays first.
Steve Freedman, head of school at Hillel Day School in
Farmington Hills, pointed to Thanksgiving, July 4 and
Labor Day as national holidays with positive messages
that are not contrary to Jewish values. “So as an Ameri-
can Jew, I want to celebrate those holidays and express
the part of my identity that’s American,” he says.
Susan Feber, 41, of West Bloomfield says she tells her
kids, ages 11, 6, and 4, that they can dress up and go
around the neighborhood for Halloween, but she and her
husband David also make sure they know it’s not a Jew-
ish holiday. “It’s become in our minds more of a neigh-
borhood holiday,” she says. “We don’t make a big deal out
of Halloween; for us it’s one night during the year.”
On the other hand, Purim, which they explain to their
kids as a holiday for “giving versus getting” and dressing
up in costumes to remember their history and heritage,
is a huge deal, she says. “Our kids are all about Purim.
It goes on for weeks in our house.” The family picks a
theme for mishloach manot, the gifts of food that people
exchange on the holiday, and drives around dropping
them off for friends.
Feber says she’s trying to prepare her children to make
Jewish choices as adults, a topic she says she’s very pas-
sionate about.
“I think that for us, being Jewish, we want our kids to
love being Jewish and recognize that they’re different, so
that when it comes time for them to make choices, they”ll
know who they are and where they come from and why.”
Jewish Identity First
Giving kids a strong Jewish identity is an issue that
Justin Remner, 29, and his wife Gayle, 30, of Oak Park,
have spent a lot of time thinking about. The couple,
whose son was born last month, discussed what build-
ing a family together would mean even before they got
married last June.
“Raising our kids is going to be different than how
I was brought up,” says Justin, whose mother is Jew-
ish and father is Irish Catholic. He grew up celebrating
Jewish holidays as well as Christmas and Easter, and
was the envy of his friends for all the gifts he got be-
tween Chanukah, Christmas and his January birthday.
Gayle, meanwhile, grew up attending Oak Park’s
Congregation Beth Shalom, going to Hebrew school on
Monday, Wednesday and Sunday; and going for Chinese
food and a movie on Christmas Day. That said, she says
she’ll raise her kids to understand Christmas as well as
Chanukah, because it’s so pervasively unavoidable in
public culture and more importantly, out of respect for
family, especially Justin’s father.
“I don’t do the ‘Christmas thing,’ never have; and
he did,” Gayle says. “We won’t have a Christmas tree,
but we’ll have to acknowledge Christmas because our
child’s grandfather is Catholic . . . so if he wants to send
Grandpa a card or make Grandpa a present, he under-
“I remember sitting down on Santa’s lap and
he asked me, ‘What’s your name,’” she says. “I
said, ‘Chaye,’ and he couldn’t pronounce it.”
stands the difference between Chanukah and Christmas.”
She added that she has a lot of important memories
tied to Jewish holidays, which she has always cooked
for or helped her mother cook for over the years. As a
family, versus as a single person or even a couple, she
says she feels a responsibility to create an environment
that celebrates Jewish holidays, from the “big ones” like
Rosh Hashanah and Passover to the Shabbat meals she
grew up with.
“It’s like a rite of passage,” she says. “Once you have
kids, it’s your turn to coordinate and plan and have that
stuff for your child.”
Building Tolerance
Being clear with children about values, especially around
holidays, is central to helping them understand the fam-
ily’s priorities, says Chaye Kohl, education director at
Akiva Hebrew Day School in Southfield.
“Parents think their kids can compartmentalize the
same way they do,” she says. “But kids see things in black
and white; adults, we pick and choose.”
The mother of three and grandmother of seven says
there’s no way to know what kids will remember. For
example, she recalls visiting Santa at Macy’s when she
was small, maybe 5-years-old. “I remember sitting down
on Santa’s lap and he asked me, ‘What’s your name,’” she
says. “I said, ‘Chaye,’ and he couldn’t pronounce it.”
She says she made a conscious effort to build toler-
ance in her children, once stopping the car when one of
her kids was saying derogatory things about a bunch of
Christmas decorations. “I pulled over and I said, ‘Listen,
we don’t make fun of other people’s religion the same way
we don’t want other people to make fun of our religion.’”
She followed it up with an explanation of the nativity
scene, Christmas lights and candy canes, and where they
fell on the religious symbols spectrum.
“The same way I wanted them to be tolerant on larger
levels, I wanted them to understand that we can appre-
ciate that there is meaning and beauty in other ways of
practice, even if they’re not our own,” she says.
For Halley Uzansky, 42, of Bloomfield Hills and her
husband Mark, giving their 10-year-old daughter and
7-year-old son a balance is key.
“My kids know what I do as a Jew
because of what we as a family
do, but they’re also enjoying their
lives in a world that’s a melting
pot.”
Uzansky says she sees the
holidays as a time to appreci-
ate things that bring out the best
in people. “I like that for people in every
religion, that they like to celebrate, that
— Chaye Kohl
they have something to be happy about,” she said.
Along those lines, she answers the age-old question
of how to relate to the cashier at the grocery store who
says, “Merry Christmas,” by saying, “Happy Holidays”
back.
“I know that some people get really upset about stuff
like that, but I don’t. I just think everyone should be
able to enjoy what they love and what’s important to
them.”
She says it also doesn’t bother her if a kid wants to
put on a Halloween costume. “Because sometimes if you
don’t participate, you’re setting yourself in another place,
too, and that’s not so great,” which is especially true in
public schools, she says. “You can still do what you do at
home and with your family without diminishing some of
these holidays that are celebrated with everybody.”
Her kids, for example, have gone to her sister’s house
to color Easter eggs with her sister and brother-in-law,
who isn’t Jewish. She says she doesn’t go into a “whole
dissertation” about Easter with her kids when they go,
but given the center stage Jewish holidays get — that
may be enough of a signal.
“We do Shabbat every week, Rosh Hashanah, we build
a sukkah and invite 200 people,” she says. “My kids
know they’re Jewish, and that we make a big impact on
the Jewish things.”
Jewish holidays have come more to the forefront for
Brett Willner, 25, in his adult life because he lived in
Israel, where the Jewish holidays are the norm. Willner,
who grew up in West Bloomfield and now lives in Ann
Arbor, says he used to segment his identity — the Jewish
part and the American part — but never saw them in
conflict.
When it came to holidays, he remembers Valentine’s
Day and Halloween as secular and American. “Everyone
used to go to school on Valentine’s Day and give those
little Valentine’s cards out to everyone else in class,” he
says.
After moving away at the end of his sophomore year in
high school, and making aliyah in 2007, he says he now
see Christian and American holidays through a different
lens. He tells the story of how in Israel, en-
gaging his Jewish identity is non-optional,
because commerce and transporation
schedules are built around the Jewish
calendar.
As for life with no Christmas lights, he
says it makes more sense there than here.
“When I see things that are very Ameri-
can, like Christmas lights, I don’t think
about it. I just think that’s America;
Christmas is coming down the road or
Halloween is coming down the road.”

Who Knew: What’s Behind That Holiday?

ven though it may feel a bit like Thanksgiving: Valentine’s Day:  States by German settlers in the 18th cen-

E finding out how much fat is in your

favorite brownies, here’s a rundown
of the stories behind popular non-Jewish
holidays that happen throughout the
year. Bear in mind the ongoing
conversation regarding how the following
holidays have moved away from their
origins, morphing into specifically
American institutions, secular or seasonal
flavor.
Halloween:
By and large considered secular by many,
All Hallows’ Eve originated from the Celtic
festival of Samhain, and was also said to
be influenced by the Catholic All Saints’
Day and All Souls’ Day. Over the years,
people have believed it to be a day when
the dead walked the Earth; and stories
suggest the Celts would wear costumes
and light fires to keep them away. Its
religious connotation reportedly began
to slip in the 19th century.
President Abraham Lincoln made Thanks-
giving Day a national November holiday in
1863. Sources suggest 1621 as one of the
colonies’ first Thanksgiving celebrations.
It was reportedly a three-day festival but,
unlike today’s festivities, pie was probably
not on the menu — the Pilgrims had no
oven and allegedly were low on sugar
aboard the Mayflower by that point.   Sources also point to the holiday as
Christmas:  festival of Lupercalia. In addition to being
Christmas traditionally celebrates the birth
of Jesus, but has increasingly taken on a
more secular, “family” connotation among
segments of Christians and non-
Christians alike — especially
when religious elements like
midnight mass are down-
played in favor of a focus
on gifts, trees and dinner.
The United States has
lit a national Christmas
tree since 1923.
 
Despite the conventional wisdom that
Valentine’s Day was created by Hallmark
to generate card sales, it actually is be-
lieved to be rooted in the story of a priest
named Valentine — there were allegedly
several martyrs by that name — who,
legend says, signed a love letter to his
jailer’s daughter “from your Valentine.”
having ties to the mid-February Roman
quite a mouthful, the Roman party was
purported to have included fertility rites
and matchmaking activities.  industrial centers around the nation.
Easter:   states had adopted the holiday, that it
Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus
Christ on the third day after his crucifix-
ion. Some sources suggest the earliest
recorded observance of Easter as the 2nd
century; others, however, find its roots in
earlier resurrection stories of the ancient
world. The tradition of the Easter Bunny
was allegedly brought to the United
tury, and has evolved into a commercial
centerpiece around spring. Sources do
not comment specifically on the arrival of
the Cadbury egg.  
Labor Day:  
Labor Day was first celebrated in 1882
in New York City as a nod to the “social
and economic achievements of American
workers,” according to the Department of
Labor’s website. By 1884, the first Monday
in September had been chosen as the
day; a year later it had spread to other
It wasn’t until 1984, however, when 23
passed in Congress as a legal holiday in
D.C. and the territories. 
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