I’ve been a musician since my first recorder lessons 50 years ago. My vision was to be the first woman conducting a major symphony, but Sarah Caldwell snagged that spot at precisely the moment I was graduating from high school. So much of the music I performed had its roots in Christian liturgy. Most of…
If you live outside of Israel or the Arab world, you’re probably used to well-meaning friends and strangers alike wishing you a “Merry Christmas!” For some, this is no big deal: we live in majority Christian nations, and Christmas is par for the course (as well as a fun, twinkly perk). For others, an innocent…
Do Jews put up Christmas trees? Absolutely — and absolutely not. On November 29, we asked our readers to share whether or not they put up a Christmas tree in their own homes. Many commented on our Facebook post or emailed us to share their stories. Here are a few that spoke to us: “I…
It is American Hanukkah’s perennial irony that this so-called “Festival of Lights” is both literally and figuratively outshone by the myriad Christmas lights that blanket trees and yards from well before Hanukkah begins to well after it concludes. Though observant viewers might glimpse a handful of candles by the window during the brief time that…
As a New Yorker, I see Christmas tree stands pop up every few blocks every holiday season, but as a non tree-buying Jew, I never paid this phenomenon much attention. All of this changed a few years ago when I made Tree Man, a documentary film about Francois, the Christmas Tree Man of Broadway and…
Do Jews put up Christmas trees? We recently surveyed our readers, and were surprised that a full 20% reported that “hell yes” they do. But given the results found in the 2013 Pew Study’s Portrait of Jewish Americans, perhaps we shouldn’t have been: Do a full third of Jews really put up trees? Perhaps. But…
The “Twelve days of Christmas” can be an excruciatingly long period of time to endure — especially if you are a teenager with all of that time off from school, but do not actually celebrate Christmas. This is my pending predicament for the upcoming holiday season and one I have experienced for the past three…
It’s Christmas Eve, and everyone knows what nice Jewish girls and boys should be doing — getting in shouting matches about politics with their parents in Chinese restaurants. But what should somewhat naughty single Jews do on the one night of the year when all the goys are busy? We interviewed Andy Rudnick, the founder…
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