Happy Holiday? Bah, Humbug!
It is a truism that Chanukah has become the Jewish equivalent of Christmas. This is most obviously demonstrated by the directive of the P.C. Police on high, that everybody wishes each other a Happy (generic) Holiday. I consider this to be insulting to everyone, and to the inherent (and Constitutional) right to celebrate his or her own applicable holiday.
Chanukah is most definitely NOT equivalent to Christmas, either in its (proper and traditional) mode of celebration, or its importance to the religious calendar. Christmas is, to all outward appearance, the most important and widely celebrated holiday in the Christian calendar. By all rights, parenthetically, Easter should be much more important, as the celebration by believing Christians of Christ’s resurrection, while Christmas, as we know it today, is of surprisingly recent vintage, and of highly questionable dating on the calendar. But an examination of Christian dogma and practice is beyond the scope of this piece, and surely beyond the expertise of this author.
By contrast, Chanukah, a beautiful and joyous holiday, to be sure, is considered by observant Jews to be relatively minor in the Jewish calendar. By way of example, Jews are permitted to work on Chanukah, drive on Chanukah, write on Chanukah (as I am doing right now), etc. These activities are prohibited to Jews not only on the “major” holidays of the Jewish calendar, but every single week on the Sabbath. I concede, of course, that these rules are mostly honored in the breach by Jews worldwide.
Nevertheless, it bears pointing out that, while nearly every Jew in America can tell you when Chanukah is and, in greatly varying degrees, what the holiday commemorates, I wonder what