How Do Families Celebrate Christian and Jewish Holiday on 25th
Traditionally, for Christian-Jewish families – or at least in writing about them – the month of Dec is referred to as a "dilemma." This time of year brings discussion almost whether to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or both, which often centers on 1 central question: "To tree, or not to tree?"
Of course, interfaith families negotiate these kinds of decisions all year round: Should we notice your traditions, my traditions, both, or neither? On some level, these are questions that whatsoever family – blood or chosen – has to navigate, even when they share the same religion. But December throws them into loftier relief for interfaith families, especially the decision of whether to put up a Christmas tree.
In my work on American religion, particularly Judaism, I have spent nearly a decade researching interfaith families – a topic which interests me, in part, considering of my own feel in interfaith families.
Many people endeavour to brand decisions well-nigh how to observe holidays past cartoon lines around what traditions are "religious" vs. "cultural." But in my interviews, many families say that information technology is ultimately not what they choose to gloat, but how they talk about it, that makes everyone feel included.
More multifaith families
What "interfaith wedlock" means varies in different historical eras. At moments in American history, a marriage between a Methodist and a Presbyterian would count, although both traditions are Protestant Christian. Many religious groups have had objections to interfaith marriage, often couched in worry that growing up in a multifaith dwelling house would be confusing or damaging for children.
After the superlative of Jewish immigration in the early 20th century, the rate of interfaith spousal relationship was low for the first few decades, but rose every bit Jewish communities became more alloyed and accepted as "American". Past the 1990s, an estimated 50% of American Jews married non-Jews, well-nigh of whom were Christian, had been raised in Christian households, or were from secular families who celebrated Christian holidays. The Jewish community oftentimes assumed people who "married out" were "lost" to Judaism.
When Americans Jews started to ally not-Jews in increasingly big numbers in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a huge controversy over whether rabbis should perform their marriages. Initially, some rabbis in the Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal movements – modern Judaism's more liberal branches – decided that they would be willing to, as long every bit those couples agreed to keep a Jewish home. That said, this was non an era of high Jewish observance, so having a Jewish habitation was frequently less almost Jewish practices like lighting candles for Shabbat and more about keeping Christian elements like holidays out of the habitation – at least until children were onetime plenty to go to Hebrew school.
Many people argued that a home should non combine religions. Equally a small minority, Jewish Americans worried that interfaith matrimony would mean a smaller Jewish community. And for some Jews, having elements of Christianity in the home could be painful, given its history of often oppressing Judaism, and because holidays like Christmas increased their own sense of beingness cultural outsiders. You lot might take people of multiple religions in that habitation, they argued, just a Jewish domicile could non include Christian holidays – and Christmas, representing the nascency of the Christian savior, seemed like the ultimate mark of Christianity.
'Culture' vs. 'religion'
In this view, Christmas was a religious holiday and the tree was the symbol of a religious holiday, despite how celebrations like decorating, baking cookies and hanging stockings for Santa can be stripped of Christian theological significant for many people – including my ain Hindu relatives. At the same time, however, many religious leaders and advice manuals argued that a Christmas tree was a cultural symbol, non a religious one, and therefore information technology shouldn't matter to a Christian spouse whether or not the family put up a tree.
Nonetheless, "religion" and "culture" are complicated, debated categories that practice not mean the same thing to everyone. In the U.S., the nigh common definition of religion is shaped by Christianity – and frequently, specifically, a form of Protestant Christianity that emphasizes beliefs over most everything else. In this understanding, religion is mostly about what someone holds in their middle, non outward signs of that faith – particularly activities that aren't rooted in theology, like church suppers, Easter eggs or Santa.
But "belief" can't capture a whole tradition, fifty-fifty Protestant ones, never listen other traditions like Judaism. This understanding of "faith" as something carve up from "culture" also assumes that somehow "faith" is more important to people.
It does not help someone sympathize why a Christmas tree might feel emotionally central to a cultural Christian who does not have faith, or feel terribly problematic to a Jew fifty-fifty if they understand that the tree is non part of theology.
Listening with care
Ultimately, peradventure, information technology is not actually of import to use these lines between religion and culture, particularly since they are much more complicated than they might announced at first glance.
In my ethnographic inquiry, the families that had the happiest holidays were the families that listened well to each other and felt that everyone'due south voices were heard.
For instance, one couple took the standard advice to forgo the tree, merely decorated with evergreens. This solution did not really satisfy the wife, who had grown up Christian, and bellyaching her Jewish husband. In the end, no i was happy.
Past contrast, another couple discussed what mattered most to them. The Jewish husband explained that he felt an "allergy" to both Jesus and the Christmas tree. His Christian wife thought about it and came to the conclusion that Jesus was fundamental to her holiday, but a tree was not. Therefore, they had a nascence scene but went without a tree – in other words, they went with the conspicuously religious symbol. She appreciated his willingness to let her have Christ in their home; he appreciated that she gave upwards the tree.
One Jewish woman said that her husband's decorations – stockings and a tree – can make her feel similar information technology is "all Christmas, all the fourth dimension," peculiarly when Hanukkah falls early on and celebrations are over long before Christmas. Merely she appreciates that he agreed to raise their child equally a Jew, to have their chief religious community be Jewish, and to attend services with her for the High Holidays and special events. It is difficult for her to have a tree in their home, but she recognizes that, while her master compromise comes in December, he has altered his life yr-round.
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Other families settled joyfully into doing both, building family traditions out of both heritages. Yet other families agreed to give upward Christmas at home in favor of fun family vacations, or long visits with Christmas-celebrating relatives.
What made a difference? For these families, my research suggested that it was not what they decided, simply how they decided: by listening to each other in a spirit of collaboration and generosity.
These compromises may seem especially challenging in a shared domestic space, which people want to experience like "home." Just the basic principle holds true in other environments, too: listening to loved ones, sharing what matters to us, honoring equally much of that equally possible – and mayhap learning to honey what our loved ones love.
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Source: https://theconversation.com/to-tree-or-not-to-tree-how-jewish-christian-families-navigate-the-december-dilemma-172840
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