By: Reanna L. Rosenthal
December 31, 2024
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, croons my car speakers. Of course it is. What’s not to love about that world-renowned, famous “spirit” and outpouring of jolliness that enters with the Christmas season, confirmed in all its glory by decades of equally-as-jolly music to match?
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Every December, a larger-than-life-sized pine tree, adorned in ornaments and twinkling lights that change their pattern every few minutes to keep the spectators guessing and sufficiently entertained, calls Huntington, New York its home for the month. It has become tradition since my high school years for me to hop in the car with my sister once the sky gets dark enough, cue up my carefully curated Christmas playlist in anticipation, and take a short drive to see the tree.
Visiting the tree each year has provided me with a constant, warm reminder: no matter where you are in life, what your background is or which religions you take part in, everyone can stand around and peacefully admire a Christmas tree.
As the lights twinkle about in their usual fashion, my attention is always redirected to the golden, glistening star that tops off the tree like a cherry on the surface of a milkshake. Without that gold star, the tree is undoubtedly still a tree, but it loses a critical component of its shine.
For a while I have hidden my star, as I am deeply afraid to let that part of me shine.
A critical component of me and my background is that I am Jewish.
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As a Jew, Christmas time stands as a symbol to me of both unity and separation. Every year when the tree goes up in Huntington, a silver menorah is set up right alongside it - but it is much, much smaller than the tree. While I am glad we aren’t completely forgotten, I wish the menorah and the Christmas tree were equal in size, equal in visibility and equal in importance.
Back in middle school, I was given a silver necklace with a Star of David charm. If you asked me today, I couldn’t tell you when the last time I wore it was…let alone the last time I picked it up and held it in my hands. I remember placing it in a jewelry box and stacking books on top of it for extra security. It’s not like I thought some stranger would rummage through my belongings and find my Jewish jewelry; that’s just how scared I was of being associated with it.
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I’ve seen plenty of people walking the streets, donning their crosses or other religious symbols out in the open with no shortage of pride. I so desperately wish that I could do the same.
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The ever-persuasive and triumphantly inaccurate media coverage of the horrifying events of Oct 7, 2023 tore the world in two. People took either side A or side B without proper, conclusive evidence - only opinions. I watched as a fleet of kids I grew up with from elementary school and onward began to turn on their longtime friends…just for being Jewish.
Shortly after the news broke, I remember the day a girl my age, whom I had known for years - someone who had attended quite a few bar and bat mitzvahs in the past, mind you - began to spam her social media stories with headstrong posts bashing Israel with no clear knowledge of the fact that Hamas, a terrorist organization, was to blame for it all - not Palestine or Israel. All she cared about was blending in with the rest of the misinformed general public. Like magic, a Palestinian flag emoji appeared at the top of her Instagram bio shortly after she began posting.
Many people were led to believe that the war between Israel and Palestine began with one country or the other, but it did not. Hamas, the terrorist organization that I mentioned above, launched an unprovoked attack on Israel. Teenagers were dragged away from a music festival. Adults and their young children, including infants, were snatched from their homes and communities. Hamas kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed hundreds of innocent people. To this day, about 100 hostages are still held in captivity with no hopes of being let out alive.
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For what feels like an eternity, many have elected to resent Jewish people - rejecting our culture, calling us names and telling us to go back in the oven. I wish I could say that I made that line up myself, but no - some idiot kid actually said that to me on the school bus, freshman year of high school. He thought he struck comedy gold. What I found funnier was the fact that he was failing out of his classes and almost didn’t graduate with us three years later.
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Mazel Tov, jerk.
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During one of my winter breaks from college, I was driving around town with a friend and decided to cue up my Christmas playlist, since it was in season. The moment a popular Christmas song came on, they turned to me and asked, with complete and utter seriousness: “You know Christmas music?! How have you heard these songs if you’re Jewish?!”
I had no clue how to answer that because frankly, no one had ever asked me that before. Why wouldn’t a Jew be familiar with Christmas music? We hear it everywhere! You could walk into any coffee house, fashion retailer or department store, and I’d bet a good sum of money that not one of those places will be playing the Dreidel Song for eight hours straight in December.
I may not celebrate Christmas, but that does not mean I can’t enjoy its merry-and-bright-ness.
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One of my favorite parts of the holly-jolly season is traveling all around Long Island to see entire neighborhoods competing for the world’s biggest power outage with their lights.
One year, my stepfather showed me an impressively lit house in Lindenhurst, where a series of LED screens and sparkling figures with moving parts were synced up to the homeowner’s playlist. I recall hearing the typical Santa serenades like Jingle Bells and White Christmas, as well as a few non-holiday songs that were thrown in the mix. I thoroughly enjoyed that light show. It’s not every day that you see a Christmas tree sprout a cartoonish face and start rapping.
Jones Beach takes a while to drive through with all of its winter traffic, but once their light show opens for the season, no one seems to mind how slow the cars are going. This time around, no one is rushing home from work. Hundreds of people sit patiently in cars going 10 miles per hour or less, staring in awe at the miles-long setup of lights along the road that must have taken hours, maybe days, to build. This may be the only time of year where New Yorkers lose their road rage.
A very long time ago, during my family’s annual quest to find the most extravagant Christmas lights, I witnessed 1 or 2 houses per neighborhood decked with lights and decorations in two colors I was more than happy to see: blue and white - the colors of the Israeli flag! Somewhere between the 2000s and 2010s, a company must have decided to sell Hanukkah-themed lawn inflatables - with blue and white Hanukkah lights to match. I tried to convince my mom to purchase a giant, inflatable polar bear wearing a blue Hanukkah sweater and a yarmulke to put on our front lawn, but she said “No.”
Over time, I got over the fact that our house was not going to be guarded by an inflatable Jewish polar bear. However, I currently find myself nervous to look around the island this December for any signs of a Jewish household. I have wondered since last year if any Jews will opt to display their Hanukkah lights at all, or if they have become as fearful to express themselves as I have.
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Although at this time, I cannot bring myself to wear my Star of David necklace, and a menorah cannot stand as tall or shine as bright as a Christmas tree, I try to remain an optimist. Christmas is a beautiful celebration of life filled with friends, family and an exchanging of endless, genuine smiles through the two words that simultaneously tie and blur all religions together:
“Happy Holidays.”