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December 20, 2002/Tevet 15 5763, Vol. 55, No. 17
Jews answer age-old query: What to do at Christmastime?
JOE BERKOFSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Sharon Glassman was just another nice Jewish girl who wanted to experience Christmas.
Tipped off by a friend, she trekked to New York City's main post office seeking Operation Santa Claus, the annual campaign drawing letters from needy kids and families hoping for a Christmas present.
She took three letters, bought the requested toy castle, down jacket and football, then wrapped the gifts and sent them off with a note ostensibly from St. Nick.
Glassman, raised as a "twice-a-year" Conservative Jew, had embarked on her mission as a "tzedakah Santa," propelled by the Torah's commandment to do acts of loving kindness.
Six years later she's touring nationally with a new book, "Love, Santa: A Different Kind of Christmas Story," about her annual campaign to convince others to follow suit.
"I would not have been comfortable trying to mimic a tradition that wasn't mine," Glassman says.
Faced with the annual dilemma of what to do during the Christmas season, American Jews increasingly are creating new annual celebrations that meld Jewish culture with the birth of Jesus.
From serving dinners at homeless shelters to prowling "Matzah Ball" singles events to noshing Chinese food at a Jewish comedy revue, Jews are "proclaiming their identity by creating new cultural traditions" for Christmas, according to Rabbi Joshua Plaut.
Plaut, executive director of the Center for Jewish History in New York, is analyzing these reactions for a doctoral dissertation he hopes to publish as a "non-judgmental" book about how Jews handle Christmas.
"American Jews are part of the majority culture every day of the year, but on Christmas Eve they suddenly become excluded," Plaut says. "They're not invited to the big Christmas party."
The Jewish response is born of two major impulses: the desire to fit in and the need to take a Jewish stand, Plaut says.
Such efforts, like Glassman's, reflect "the Christmas mitzvah of doing good deeds for one's neighbors," Plaut says. "It's people justifying their behavior on Christmas Day with Jewish reasons."
New Jewish rituals are evolving as well. The sight of Jews taking refuge in Chinese restaurants has become so commonplace as to become a cliche.
There are now Christmas Eve comedy shows, sing-alongs, fund-raisers and events such as "Jewsapalooza." Israeli dances and singles events like the "Matzah Ball" have spawned "shmoozefests" in cities around the country.
Jewish museums nationwide remain open on Christmas and often attract their largest crowds of the year.
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