Human-Spirit: Crossing the red-and-green line
By Barbara Sofer
Jan. 7, 2004
Seniors at Jerusalem's prestigious Hebrew University High School selected a Christmas theme for this year's Hanukka party � complete with Christmas tree and Santa hats. This should jingle alarm bells. The choice may have been an innocent decision by teenagers looking for a gimmick, or, as school principal Gilad Amir suggests, a gesture in deference to the 12th grade's three Christian students. But the image of Israel's future leadership dancing to the lights of a Christmas tree was enough to upset the Knesset's Education Committee this week.
The Hebrew University High School was established under the leadership of Israel Prize winner and Jewish educator Alexander Dushkin, to whom we owe the concept of the Jewish summer camp. A recent alumni reunion boasted enough judges, professors, doctors, IDF officers, writers, and actors to convince anyone of its impact on the country's future decision-makers. In Israel the high school you attend often has more significance than the university.
So why are these bright pre-army Jewish teens putting up Christmas decorations? A discussion among the students on the school's lively Web site explains that the seniors were seeking a theme for their Hanukka party. "They thought and thought, "and came up with the idea of Christmas." They sought and received the approval of both the administration and the class council.
From the on-line discussion, the good news is that Christmas generated considerable controversy among the students. Says one student who strongly opposed the theme, "I'm a Jew and proud of it." The bad news is that these kids wanted Christmas at the party in the first place and no educator saw anything wrong with it.
On the Web site, another student sounded rather puzzled. "So what if we want to know about other religions? I can be a Jew and know what Christmas is, and Id al-Fitr and Chinese New Year," as if putting up a Christmas tree was a project in cultural anthropology for Jews. This is a postmodern response � the fruit of a postmodern approach to education.
In the language of postmodernism, "multiculturalism" grants parity to all traditions. Whether you are a Jew in Jerusalem or an Eskimo in Canada, a mantra equals the Shema, a tattoo equals tefillin, and a Christmas tree equals the Tree of Life. Educators have become so nervous about distinguishing right from wrong that we can almost imagine child sacrifice in the Hinnom Valley described as cultural expression. That is folly for anyone eager to encourage students to cherish their personal heritage. A good school has to be more than a portal of neutral choices.
In his conversation with me, principal Amir stressed that the official school celebration, as opposed to the dance party, was strictly Hanukka-oriented and that "there was no religious content to the tree."
He didn't seem aware of how laden with negative meaning Christmas symbolism is for Jews. In Europe, Jews were warned not to gather to study Torah on the December 24 because of pogroms. In the US, a Christmas tree was the red line � the red-and-green line � that marks a family's loss of allegiance to the Jewish people.
There's more Christmas around in Israel than a decade ago. Crowds of curious Jewish Israelis attended Christmas services in Jerusalem. Illuminated reindeer pranced across rooftops in Haifa and Ashdod. After all, we closed our eyes while 300,000 non-Jews were encouraged by emissaries to move here to fill aliya quotas. Then, we did little to encourage newcomers to embrace Judaism.
Let's open our eyes now. This doesn't have to be a lost cause. Educator Etti Serok of the Frankel Center for Family Education tells a story opposite to the one at the university high school. Running a Judaism program for bat-mitzva-age girls in a northern residential Youth Aliya village, she asked the kids which holiday they celebrated. The sabra educator was surprised when they answered "Christmas." Instead of raising shocked eyebrows, she asked the girls what they liked about the holiday. No one had a theological answer. They spoke of festive food and bright lights. So Serok introduced them to latkes and sufganiot and bought each girl a Hanukkiya to light in the school dining hall. Without coercion or bashing their old lives, she managed to lovingly introduce Jewish customs.
The most astounding part of the program was that the girls' secular sabra teachers � who initially balked at the religion teacher arriving each week from Jerusalem � asked her to design a program for them. Somehow, they had missed the basics and fine points of their own heritage.
Amir and the seniors protest that their Christmas party was blown out of proportion and that the school's Jewish identity is in fine shape. I fear they do protest too much. Instead, they might take stock of how much Jewish pride they're instilling. Where the university high school goes, so others will follow. Hanukka was our first ideological war. Message to Education Minister Limor Livnat: A Hanukka party that turned into a Christmas celebration is a good place to start fighting the educational battle for the hearts of our own children
