Comments on: Chanuka Cham update

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:31:03 +0000

Oy – thanks for that Roland.

I’ve heard similar too. Just heard another story about someone being asked to show their horns. Unbelievable. And of course the thing about whether Shabbat is every Friday.

At law school, I met a woman from the Upper peninsula of Michigan who told me she’d never met a Jew before and I wasn’t anything like what she expected. Okayyyyy…

And then, in college, when the student activities committee scheduled a huge student fair on the lawn onto which the students attending Rosh Hashana services would exit after services, they told me, when I asked about changing the fair’s date or location, “Well, it’s not like it’s a national holiday or anything, like Easter.”

That’s supposed to persuade me?

Anyway – you are right though – most of the time, it really really is a lack of understanding. Nothing more nothing less. Still – can be frustrating.

Thanks for sharing.

By: Roland Hansen

Roland Hansen — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:23:47 +0000

Some goyim have a total lack of understanding.
I have a neighbor who has told me “Just because your Jewish, doesn’t mean you can’t be a good Christian.”
One time, a woman saw my wife’s Star of David necklace and asked “Is that a Jewish cross?”

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 03:46:37 +0000

Thanks for that link, SAB, I just finished reading it. I am with him all the way until the end. I know that there are Jews who must feel and behave as he says, here in the U.S. and maybe in other places. But I can promise you that I don’t and we don’t teach our kids that way and neither do any of the Jews in my synagogue.

That said, I can tell you that during the three years of teaching primary religious school at a Reform synagogue in Connecticut, I got questions about integrating the two holidays all the time.

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 03:40:49 +0000

That’s a little unusual but not totally. For Rosh Hashanah, a lot of Jews only observe one day – I did growing up Reform. Now, as a member of a conservative synagogue, my husband and I do two days and we’ve started to have our kids go two days too – probably three or so years ago. Yom Kippur is only one day – I’d be a little weirded out by a mass working movement by Jews on that holiday but there you have it in America. Religious, cultural, ethnic.

By: sab

sab — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:12:03 +0000

Ckeck out Tony Karon’s interesting Chanuka post at TonyKaron.com for Dec. 6.Lots of historical perspective and all that.

By: sab

sab — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:08:17 +0000

The sales pitch wouldn’t work in New York, but would work in California. I remember my shock my first year in the San Francisco area when I went to work during the High Holidays, and there were all the Jewish owners, and everyone else except for one Orthodox bookkeeper. As a midwesterner, I had never realized that people could be that non-observant and stll claim to be Jewish.

I suppose latkes go nicely with ham if your not fussy about what you eat. I’m a shiksa, and even I still have my eating standards below which I won’t let my family sink.