Growing up the only Jewish kid in a largely Christian community, I used to dream of growing up and moving to New York City, where my religion and its holidays would be mainstream and accepted – or at least familiar enough that I would never have to explain the meaning of Passover yet again or be accused of “wanting special treatment” when I took Yom Kippur off of work. (Honestly, I’d rather make spreadsheets than fast, but hey, whatever.)
But even though Hanukah is the most mainstream Jewish holiday in America and I do live in New York, I still find myself feeling like even the smallest gesture that not everyone celebrates Christmas is half-hearted at best and grudging at worst.
Take my local drugstore – located in a busy corner of Lower Manhattan – as an example. It has seven entire aisles dedicated to Christmas items, from red and green candies to tree lights to Santa bobbleheads. You can find Hanukah wrapping paper – only one kind – at an endcap on the back of one aisle, but you’re out of luck if the bright blue Star of David-printed paper isn’t your taste. Altogether, there are about ten total Hanukah items on offer – including some gelt that smelled like it had been stuffed in a cardboard box since last year – in one of the biggest retailers in one of New York City’s oldest Jewish neighborhoods.
So often, people who preach inclusivity miss the point. Yes, Jewish people and their families would like to have decorations for Hanukah and other holidays, and some of us are grateful when mainstream stores acknowledge us at all. But seven aisles of Christmas gear and less than one-third of an aisle of Hanukah stuff barely counts as inclusion. It’s separate, and it’s nowhere close to being equal.
Store employees may, at the behest of management, take pains to tell me “happy holidays” at the cash register – but the store that employs them clearly treats my holiday like an afterthought, if not an annoyance. If you don’t care if my holidays are actually happy, just tell me “Merry Christmas” and forgo the charade that you care about anyone else.
Too often, “holiday season” is a catchall for “at least I’m not only saying Christmas” rather than a legitimate attempt to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome. Take my office building, which has two large Christmas trees in the lobby and a small one on every floor, but absolutely zero menorahs or references to Hanukah of any kind lying around – even though there are plenty of Jewish employees. The Christmas trees might not make direct references to Jesus – and, yes, I know that they’re a tradition that has its origins in pre-Christian pagan rituals, thanks – that doesn’t make them secular. I’m not about to mistake any of them for a “Hanukah bush” – not that they’re a real thing, anyway.
An apartment building lobby might have a “Happy Holidays” sign, but when there’s a 20-foot Christmas tree covered in gold and crystal ornaments next to a six-inch electric menorah, it’s impossible not to feel slighted. When you send a supposedly secular “season’s greetings” cards but it’s still red and green, you’re not fooling anyone.
Going through the motions of inclusion aren’t enough. Simply tolerating other cultures, religions and festivals isn’t sufficient: until we have the same amount of respect, all your pointless gestures of inclusivity ring hollow. Every time a mainstream radio station switches to 24/7 Christmas music for the entire month of December but plays Adam Sandler’s The Chanukah Song once every couple of hours, or when an office holds a “tacky Christmas sweater” competition, or when a TV show about holiday baking features contestants from non-Christian backgrounds baking cookies shaped like reindeer, I don’t feel included; I’m simply reminded that my inclusion is, and always has been, an afterthought.
I’d almost rather retailers and businesses ignored me – and my fellow Jews –altogether the month of December rather than offering up a third-rate, half-hearted attempt to make me feel included. It didn’t work in high school, and it doesn’t work now.
