Dec 24 2007
I just got back from a quick coffee with Yankel at our local kosher coffee shop, where we ran in to Yankel’s Rabbi. I really like the guy (The Rabbi that is, Yankel not so much
) and he does indeed have a heart of gold, but some times he just says (I’m sure without realizing it) some extremely ethnocentric (if not flat out bigoted) things.
Today as he got up to leave, one of us asked him what he had planned for tonight. To which he replied “I am just going to spend time with the family” which is nice because he’s always got a crazy and hectic schedule thus making time is hard. However he went on to say “by the way you know Jews aren’t supposed to study Torah on Christmas Eve”. I can’t recall his next words exactly, but it basically boiled down to this being, something of an act of protest against both JC and Christianity.
Oy-vey!
Okay as a convert and someone who was raised in a nominally Catholic environment, I am NO fan of Christmas. I can also admit that (right or wrong) it bugs me big time when, people who “claim” to be Jewish celebrate the Xmas holiday. However, having said that (especially living in a western, post-emancipation, pluralistic, democratic) society, I don’t view Jesus or Christianity per say, as being evil and I don’t feel Christmas is something we need to rebel against in the way, the good Rabbi suggested. Now evangelic zeal with regard to converting Jews is a totally different story of course, but it’s the Evangelism and not the Christianity, that I take issue with, in that situation.
Don’t get me wrong I know that Christianity has a piss poor track record historically speaking when it comes to Jew’s but I’m just not in to the ethnocentrism behind the Rabbis line of thinking. Anyhow. I decided to do a little, online digging on the subject (of Jesus and Christmas from a Jewish POV) when I got home and what follows are a few of the highlights from what I learned.
NOTE: I just want to make it clear before moving on, that I’m not trying to dismiss or minimize Jewish concerns with regards to Christianity or it’s historical treatment of the Jewish People. I do however want to point out that ethnocentrism and bigotry, is indeed in some respects a two way street, when it comes to our two traditions. I know that some people reading this will be rubbed the wrong way, because they don’t feel there is any comparison to be made, either in terms of scale or magnitude, when it come’s to Jewish bigotry/discrimination vs Christian bigotry/discrimination and that is indeed true. However, I don’t think there is anything wrong with pointing out some of our own BS, especially, when it’s seems to be something some 21st century Jew’s are still holding on to. Obviously I have let the cat out of the bag in terms of how I feel about this subject. However below, I’m just going to layout some of the stories, history and commentary and refrain from any additional editorializing. Okay that’s not likely to happen but I will try to keep it to a minimum.
With that, I share the following in the spirit of open inquiry and Learning.
I found the following on Jesus in a great book called “The Dictionary of Jewish Lore & Legend“. It’s focused on exploring Jewish beliefs and lore from the pre-enlightenment period.
Jesus of Nazareth
There are few direct references to Jesus in early rabbinic literature, and some of these references are highly ambiguous. The image of Jesus which does emerge in the later Jewish tradition is very different from Christian stories and teachings about him. He appears as a mamzer, a child born from an adulterous union between his Jewish mother and a Gentile Roman soldier. He was excommunicated by one of the rabbis after a misunderstanding and thereafter left Jewish religion, worshiped idols and led Israel astray. He studied magic in Egypt and was able to smuggle out magic formula from there stuck in a fold of his skin. As a magician he used to make birds out of clay and then put life into them, but he was defeated in a magical contest with the rabbis. He was sentenced to death as a sorcerer but could only be hung from a cabbage stock since he had conjured all other trees not to accept his body. Jesus was punished in hell for his sins, and there he recognized the error of his ways. The Roman aristocrat ONKELOS, a would-be convert to Judaism, summoned Jesus up from the dead to ask his advice and was told of the great value in which Israel was held. These legends, together with Jewish polemical writings against Jesus in Christianity, gave the mid-evil Jew the ability to cope with Christian persecution and to withstand missionary propaganda.
In all fairness even though that last sentence from the above quote, does much to illuminate, why such beliefs may have been held. To me the above doesn’t come off any better than stories of Jews using the blood of Christian children to make their Matzah.
Now a little on Jews and Christmas from the fine people over at MJL.org (with emphasis added by me):
Jews in Eastern Europe generally spent Christmas Eve and Day in the safety of their homes. In certain places, Christian authorities actually prohibited Jews from appearing in public places during the Christian high holidays, so Jewish schools and synagogues were closed. In other places, Christians attacked Jews on Christmas, thus staying home was encouraged for security reasons. Fearing that Jewish students would be attacked on the way to study, rabbis prohibited Jewish students from leaving home to study Torah. Torah study was also prohibited because Jesus, in his youth, engaged in religious study; thus the medieval rabbis prohibited the activity lest it lend merit to Jesus.
In fact for some this prohibition was not only to protect vulnerable Jews from angry Christians or to protest Jesus. It was also to protect the Chosen people from potential Demonic attacks! Well at least according to Segal (a Talmud Expert and Jewish Historian) that is.
Those who forbade study on Nittel night insisted that grave consequences would befall people who transgressed the prohibition. One Hasidic rabbi attested that irresponsible individuals who insisted on pursuing their studies had their houses visited by dogs–a terrifying prospect for eastern European Jews, especially since (as the writer hints) dogs have symbolic associations with the demonic realms.
Unfortunately Jews don’t only go after Jesus, at least not according to Eliezer Segal. Because according to his article “Silent Night” they also Go after Santa! Although it should stated that according to Segal’s research, Jesus and Santa are actually the same guy.
The oldest descriptions of a Jewish anti-Christmas can be pieced together from some early seventeenth century writings (albeit most of them were by apostate Jews). We learn from these reports that, in the Jewish folk imagination, Jesus was being depicted as a veritable anti-Santa, a grinch-esque bogymen doomed to creep through sewers on Christmas night, as punishment for his heresy, emerging periodically to terrify children. In order to prevent him from enjoying any easing of his sentence by virtue of the merits of Torah study, Jews vindictively chose that time to refrain from learning.
According to Yankel and based on my understanding of what Yankels Rabbi said this afternoon, this prohibition is indeed still a practice among certain segments of the Jewish population, even today. However according to Rabbi Chaim Tabaskyan the legitimacy of this prohibition is not so cut and dry.
The custom of not studying Torah on Christmas was observed in several Eastern European communities, and today is observed in some Chassidic communities (notably Satmir.) In some communities Christmas was a day to attack Jews, and therefore it was discouraged to go out to the Beit Midrash to avoid altercations. Another reason given is that Jesus studied Torah in his youth and we should avoid identifying with him.
One who does not have a clear custom to refrain from Torah study on this day certainly should not negate or postpone a Torah study.
Yes indeed, it seems that not everyone feels that putting the hate on Christmas is kosher, or even a good idea.
Again from Professor Eliezer Segal
The avoidance of Torah study on a gentile holy day is a puzzling notion that seems downright pathological in its readiness to diminish one’s own spiritual growth in order to deny recognition to someone else’s faith. While such narrow-mindedness might have been understandable in the ghettos of medieval Europe where it originated, it is particularly distasteful to find it continued into our own days.
Occasionally, the differing attitudes towards Nittel-nacht were recognized as criteria for distinguishing between the Hassidim and their opponents. Thus, we find that the scholarly orientation of the Lithuanian yeshivahs led many of their leaders to oppose any interruption of study on Christmas eve, whereas Hassidic lore depicted the night as a time of sinister metaphysical foreboding that must be treated with grave vigilance.
Segal Finally concludes with the following on Nittel (aka Christmas) which pretty much sums up my thinking on the subject.
Whenever we hear about representatives of other religious communities mocking or vilifying Jews or Judaism, we consider it unacceptable, and we justly insist that the defamations be stopped. I trust that the same principles apply when the tables are turned. Hopefully, the anti-Christian tone of the Nittel is now nothing more than an obscure historical memory from a more primitive age.
All in all, I think this stuff is actually more fascinating from a historical point of view, than it is disturbing. Looking at this from a historical context I can understand it but to hear Rabbi talk about this prohibition just today, is flat out STRANGE! In fact the only justifiable reason I can think of for trying to use this prohibition in the 21st century is in the following way.
Again one last time from Segal’s Silent Night article.
A friend of mine who used to teach in a traditional Jewish girls’ school once told me how surprised she had been to discover that some of her students were extremely well-informed about the intricacies of the Christian calendar. Their expertise was not limited to the such commonplace knowledge as the December 25 date for Christmas. No, the young ladies in this class were also conversant with lesser-known variations on that date as celebrated by the assorted denominations according to their respective calendars, with much of December and January being sprinkled with more obscure holy days, like Advent and St. Nicholas Day.
It eventualy became clear that the students’ erudition on these matters was not an indication of their interest in multicultural ecumenism. Rather, it was a simple consequence of their aversion to homework.
These avid learners were appealing to the Christian sacred calendars in order to exempt themselves from schoolwork on those days, in keeping with a curious custom in some Ashkenazic Jewish communities that prohibited religious study on Christmas.
Actually, come to think of it maybe Yankel’s Rabbi, is just trying to get out of a little Torah study?
Now I think I’m going to go and make sure that my windows and door are closed and locked. You know just in case any of those demonic dogs are in the neighborhood tonight. Not to mention that undead Jesus/Santa monster.
Yup I think its time to go and do a little Torah studying. So on that note I would like to wish you all a happy Nittel Nacht.
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Oh I love reading all the lore and legend. Here’s a blog entry by Rabbi Ari Enkin about Nittle Nacht: http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2007/12/nittel-nacht-christmas-eve.html
My favorite bit: “Historically, Torah scholars would use the night to play cards, a practice frowned upon by many halachic authorities.[26] Some, including great rabbis, were known to play chess on Nittel Nacht.[27] Others humorously relate of a widespread custom to spend the night tearing toilet paper for Shabbat use throughout the year.”
Now THAT is a creative way to spend your time on Christmas Eve
Ah yes, to add to the list is this article from FORWARD about Christmas Puns from Jewish peoples :
http://www.forward.com/articles/9103/
One excerpt for a preview:
The most precious commandment for religious Jews is learning Torah…. The only time Jews would not learn was at times of personal or communal mourning — and on Nitlnacht. There would be no learning to bring honor and merit to the one that was born on that night. That was why frivolous activities like card playing would take place.
And Mr. Gertel has this to say:
My mother, born and raised in Lodz, Poland, always recounted how her very Orthodox parents and relatives would indeed play cards only on this one night of the year.Her reasoning, however, was that this was because Jews were afraid to venture out on that night and were better off staying indoors. This seems to be born out by the [halachic volume] Sefer ha-Mit’amim, which, in its chapter on nitl, speaks of a rabbinic injunction to stay home on Christmas Eve because Christians might beat up Jews, while at the same time forbidding Jews to study Torah lest it be thought that this was being done in “his [Jesus’] honor.”
Thanks for the shout out, but we’re myjewishlearning.com, not .org
My Catholic wife and I are about to go to dinner and then midnight Christmas mass at Christ the King Church. I like midnight mass; I like the smell of incense. I have a real fondness for Catholic religious ritual.
It’s easy to smile at what looks to us like the quaint, old world, and naive bigotry of Eastern European Jews to the Christianity within which they lived. But let us make no mistake. For most of their time in Christian Europe, Jews lived lives of radical insecurity and very real terror. Jews had no citizen rights in Europe, East or West, until the 18th century. They couldn’t own property, most professions were closed to them, and they were forced to reside in cramped and disease-ridden ghettos unimaginable in today’s world. And then there were the pogroms that for a good part of the Middle Ages sprouted with renewed violence each Easter.
I once asked my great-uncle who grew up in the Russian Pale why he had such antipathy to Christmas. “After all,” I said, “it’s just celebrating the birth of a Jew.”
He gave me a look of disgust that I’ll never forget and said, “Yes. But because that one Jew was born, millions of other Jews had to die.”
I never had to question him again.
Tamara and ChaviJo
I’m glad you both enjoyed the posts and thanks for the links.
Meredith
Thanks for popping by and although I may not gotten the .com right but at least the link works.LOL!
Yankel
I hear what you are saying and I did make it a point, to mention in the above post, that I wasn’t trying to make light of what has happened historically. Having said that, I still say propaganda is propaganda no matter who is spinning it. Jesus/Santa Beasts and Jesus whichcraft is imo nutts!
Have fun at church my friend!
Very articulate! Wish I wrote that good. (Sorry. ‘I wish that I was able to write that well.’)
Informative article. I’m anti-bigotry and pro-JesusUndeadMonster. Wait, I guess Christ COULD be counted as a zombie, he DID rise from the dead afterall.
Much respect,
Mario
Listening to “Born to Kvetch” (a wonderfully funny book and read by the author) I was struck at how many Yiddishisms were, directly or indirectly, verbal responses to Christian hatred of Jews or else Jewish commentary on Christian teaching.
“…according to Segal’s research, Jesus and Santa are actually the same guy…”
Huh?
Wow! Great post. I just got back from the annual xmas eve jaunt at my wife’s catholic family’s house. This was the first year that everyone knew i had converted… My wife was a rock and everyone was very accommodating and understanding–my wife’s 1st generation Italian grandmother gave me a big hug and said she was proud of me… I stepped out as they sang happy birthday to Jesus, and my son and I joked about the lack of non-ham based food… But otherwise, I survived
While I’m not studing Torah tonight, I’m watching an excellent DVD series called “Jewish Heritage: Civilization and the Jews.”
Huw:
I never Read/Listened to B to K but I hear it’s great. As for the Santa/Jesus here is the quote.
I was kind of Joking with that comparison but “the word” Santa is in deed mentioned, well kind of!
Micah:
Glad things went well for you tonight!!! Also I have that PBS series you are watching. It’s great and something I think every JBC should at least see once if not own their own copy (like me
).
BTW Micah I have a question for you. So would you mind sending me an email via our contact page?
Avi:
I’ve been able to process your post for a few hours now and I think I’m able to better articulate why it has so ticked me off. It is the equivalency you seem to find in Jewish stories and myths about Jesus and the stories and myths spread by Christians about Jews, most blatantly stated when you wrote, “To me the above doesn’t come off any better than stories of Jews using the blood of Christian children to make their Matzah.”
These stories may look the same, but they most certainly are not same. Archeology and gardening look the same in many ways too, but they are two completely different things. The main difference between Jewish myths about Christians and Christian myths about Jews are first and foremost in their motives and purpose.
Christian myths and libels about Jews were spread to discredit Jews from the position they claimed based on the Old Testament. Christians accepted the Old Testament because they felt it prophesied the Messiahship of Jesus. But the protagonists of the Old Testament are the Jews, the very people who rejected him. With St. Augustine, Christianity adopted a supersessionist theology, saying that when the Jews rejected Christ as Messiah, God rejected them as his chosen people, and made Christians the new elect. The various myths and libels invented over the years only support of this supersessionist theology, and demonstrate how far God’s once-chosen people had fallen.
In contrast, the myths Jews developed about Jesus and Christmas was the natural reaction of a community under siege. Most of the myths you listed, that Jesus was born out of wedlock, that Jesus was a sorcerer, were invented by the Jews of Palestine in the first six centuries C.E. That community, especially from the time of Constantine, was under relentless pressure and had to defend itself not just politically and economically, but psychically as well. They didn’t tell these stories to other people to discredit Christianity, they told them to themselves as a defense mechanism, to keep themselves from being psychically overcome by hostile forces all around them that were, quite literally, trying to destroy them.
So to say these Jews were indulging in the same kind of bigoted propaganda that their Christian neighbors were indulging in is untrue and worse than wrong. It’s blaming the victim.
Yankel”
I am truly sorry this post has hit you the way that it has and I understand your take but we will just have to agree to disagree on this one.
Happy Fesitivus
I wonder if this is a Western issue. Does anyone know of a comparable tradition on either the Julian Calendar date (in Russia, etc - and also in Greece & Turkey until the 1920s) or on January 6th when the Nativity is commemorated in other Eastern Countries (Armenia, etc)?
“The mutual awareness of each other’s calendars was a crucial factor in the economy of both Christians and Jews, for it facilitated maximum attendance at their respective fairs, and fueled the manufacture and sale of holiday-related merchandise. For Jews, becoming familiar with the Christian calendar was also a safety precaution. On certain Christian holidays, especially Easter and Christmas, Christian animosity towards Jews was at its peak. Every shtetl Jew, from the youngest heder boy to the oldestman in the beth midrash, knew the dates of the Christian holidays, in order to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time. On Christmas Eve, for example, the heder classes ended early so that the students could be sure of returning safely to their homes before nightfall.
“Though Jews were well aware of the Julian calendar, it had merely practical significance to them, which was completely external to their fundamental experience in life.All intimate, important, internal aspects of their lives, from birth to death, were dominated by the Hewish calendar.”
From pp. 406-7 of Yaffa Eliach
There Once was a World: A nine-hundred year chronicle of the shtetl of Eishyshok, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998).
It is really a fantastic book about a Jewish community and its history in pre-WWII Lithuania. I think the above quotation sheds a little light on some of the questions raised in comments above.
There is another regarding January 6, which I am going to put in a different comment.
“These peaceful evenings [of Hanukkah] were sometimes violently disrupted in the occasional years when the end of Hanukkah overlapped with Epiphany… Locally, the holiday was known as Swieto Trzech Kroli, the Festival of the Three Kings. Dressed as Magi, Christian villagers would burst into Jewish homes, demand money or other valuables, or simply run riot through the house.”
–There Once was a World, p, 425
Hey Avi,
One the one hand, I agree with you that too often historically-held bigotry gets carried over too far by Jews living in modern, progressive (relatively) societies. On the other hand, I agree with Yankel that the Eastern European Jewish experience is one through which such beliefs and traditions about Jesus and Christianity served a defensive purpose, and such cultural developments are, out of necessity, persistent. Further, these threats were not limited to Eastern Europe; even Martin Luther, who is held up by Protestants as a paragon of religious tolerance and resistance to Church coercion, became a raging anti-Semite. Although initially enamored of Jews for teaching him Hebrew (I guess that one bit us in the rear ;)), and not unlike current evangelicals with their “we love the Jewish people” shtick, Luther was deeply hurt by his inability to convert Jews. He then decided it was our fault, and wrote a pamphlet called “On the Jews and Their Lies” in which he advocates the murder of Jews, the burning of the Talmud, and the destruction of synagogues. It was basically a playbook for the Holocaust.
While I wouldn’t hold modern Lutherans responsible for this history, that fact of the matter is that their tradition was built by a man who hated Jews and called for our destruction. Pretending this history is not there or that it doesn’t matter does not change the fact that it is real. And seeing that Jews in Europe have experienced the physical consequences of such pervasive beliefs for 1800 years makes it obvious why such superstitions and fears developed.
I have to also add that out of my own personal experience in evangelical Christianity before coming home to my G-d, my People, and our Tradition, I firmly believe the evangelical Christianity you speak of is an ever-present threat to Judaism. From there support for ultra-right-wing Israeli policies which endanger the State’s future, to their concerted efforts to deceptively convert uneducated Jews through “Messianic Judaism,” their “love” and “support” seems all too familiar in light of the history of Christian interaction with our people.
Interesting post though, and good research!
kol tuv,
Yair
Avishalom (or anyone who would know) does Hanukkah ever fall so late as to be on Jan 6th (Gregorian Epiphany) or Jan 19th (Julian Epiphany)?
As to the larger thread I agree with Yael and Yankel in one way: it’s very clear how we got to where we are. But it’s really a case of reverse discrimination, is it not? It’s like the question of “Can Blacks be racist - or does the imbalanced power in the system an history justify current attitudes?”
I don’t have an answer - for I’m a nice white boy in Dixie - but it seems to be the same question.
Huw:
I’m not saying that the attitudes of some Jews in the modern world towards Christians cannot be classified as bigoted and worse. They clearly are and deserve loud and vigorous condemnation whenever voiced.
My argument is the equivalency made between the stories Jews told about Christ and Christianity throughout the middle ages and beyond, and those told by Christians about Jews. The Christians stories were used to justify the destruction of European Jewry. The Jewish stories were a reaction and psychological defense against those efforts, and not primarily done out of racist bigotry.
In support of that hypothesis is the fact that Jews who lived in Muslim lands during those times, where the oppression was much less severe than in Europe, there were no equivalent stories that I know of told about Mohammad and the Muslim faith.
Huw & Yankel,
Regarding the suggestion of “reverse discrimination:”
You can’t really discriminate without power. Discrimination - in a social context - is the systematic denial of access to power based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. So even though Jews are doing well here, in a Christian country like the USA, even modern Jews having negative views of Christianity is not discrimination, because the most it means is they don’t like Christians. But there is not a systemic denial of access to resources or power to Christians because of it. When groups hold such capacity for denial however, they are capable of discriminating.
I think it is also worth noting that given Christians have an 1800 year history of discrimination, persecution, and outright genocide of Jews, leading up all the way to the Holocaust which was largely carried out by Catholics and Lutherans, Christians have a LONG WAY TO GO to earn the trust and confidence of Jews. What, because there hasn’t been a large scale and organized attempt to eradicate Jews and Judaism (although evangelical missionaries come perilously close to this, IMO), in the last generation we are supposed to just forget about the previous 80 generations of violent Christian anti-Semitism? Because this generation has been an anomaly we should automatically trust a religion with 2 billion+ adherents and which has millennia of experience killing us?
A classical mark of privilege is the expectation that once the privileged group becomes aware of its historical wrongs, it expects the victimized groups to “forgive and forget” and accept an apology without redress of said wrongs. Some exterminators of our people have gone the extra mile and made compensation on several fronts, including Germany. Others have expected a verbal apology to cover acknowledged wrongs, while denying culpability for the most heinous actions, such as the Roman Catholic Church. But centuries of oppression and murder have created a dynamic through which fear and mistrust have been taken on as a matter of survival. Forgive us if recently-discovered Christian “love for the Jewish People” doesn’t convince us.
Disclaimer: Many Christian denominations have developed strong relationships with the American Jewish Community, based primarily on respect and mutual appreciation. Such relationships are welcomed to be sure, but they do not represent typified Christian relationships with Jews here or around the world.
And finally, Yankel, your point that there are not any analogous Jewish stories about Muhammad is well said. There aren’t any that I am aware of, and that is largely because Jews have historically done pretty well under Muslim rulers. The anti-Jewish violence from Muslims was not specifically anti-Jewish, but Jews were caught up in more wide-reaching anti-non-Muslim violence. But these incidents amounted to a handful in the 1400 year history of Islam, where Christian violence against Jews was an annual event in much of Christendom, and it was specifically directed against Jews, because they were Jews. It should be noted that modern Muslim violence against Jews is less about Islam than it is about politics, despite much evangelical Chistian polemic work with the Qur’an (i.e., misinterpreting the response of the Qur’an to the Jewish tribes in Medina after they betrayed Muhammad to the Meccans, etc…). But under Muslim rulers we have been diplomats, courtiers, generals, physicians, teachers, advisers, and businessmen. The Rambam was a court physician to Salah al-Din’s vizier, when the Sultan was fighting against Christian invaders in Eretz Yisrael. While we thrived under Muslim rule, we were ghettoized by Christians.
kol tuv,
Yair
Huw, that is a good question regarding the overlap of Chanukah and the Christian Twelfth Night. Could January 6 (on either Gregorian or Julian calendars) ever overlap with Chanukah? Now that you mention it, I do not think so. So now I am puzzled by that quotation I referenced above.
Yankel: Thank you for that information about Islam. I didn’t know that. In Wex’s book on Yiddish (referenced above) he makes no comments about Islam, but I assumed that was because of a relative lack of contact between Jews and Muslims in the parts of the world/history where Yiddish evolved.
Avishalom: I didn’t *think* it was possible, but I’m not familiar enough with the Jewish calendar.
I have heard of this custom also and I find it a little “shtetl-minded” (IMO). I heard part of this talk by Lawrence Kelemen (The Real Story of X-Mas) which explains the truth behind xmas and what happened to Jews during that holiday.
I am not saying that I agree or disagree with him but it is an interesting talk. (It can be heard <a href=”http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/index.htm”here.)
As an individual who holds a view of Jesus that is considered “heretical” to borrow a Christian term, the best that I can ask for is that Jews and Christians review both religious traditions from an intellectually honest approach.
Jews and Christians should be able to understand the breakthroughs via archeology that have been made in rediscovering the Jewishness and I would say the Judaism of Jesus and his earliest Jewish followers. That fact should prove a challenge to both contemporary Jewish views of Jesus, and in fact a much more serious challenge to Christian views on the Jew from Nazareth.
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