How Can We Deal with the So-Called "December Dilemma"?
The challenges and contradictions of being a Jew in America are never more obvious than in the month of December. Christmas is unavoidable from before Thanksgiving until well after New Year's. Every year, I wonder how much I should participate in the hoopla.
Are We Right to Blend Hanukkah and Thanksgiving This Year?
As you’ve undoubtedly heard, the Jewish calendar and the secular calendar offer a strange convergence in the United States this year as Hanukkah and Thanksgiving coincide. The Jewish media has been full of humorous articles about combined menus (like this one from Jewish cooking expert Tina Wasserman) featuring foods like latkes with cranberry sauce, and the term “Thanksgivukkah” has been coined to describe the merged holiday.
Hanukkah Confessions of an Interfaith Kid
I’m pretty sure my family coined the term Christmukkah. We were interfaith hipsters, once we realized that the alternative, Festivus, wasn’t really for the restofus.
The Three Lies We Tell About Hanukkah
There probably is no holiday on the Jewish calendar that has been redefined more than Hanukkah. In each age, this holiday has been transformed to suit the issues and concerns of its time.
In Toledo, Asleep in the Room of the Moneylenders
We took advantage of our empty nest status to take a week-long trip to Spain this month, the first time in almost 20 years that we could travel at a time when schools weren’t on vacation.