Eight Nights of Increasing Light
November 28, 2021
A New Scroll of LA Jewish News
Folks,
What fulfills my dreams this Chanukah? Getting back together with friends and family to light the menorah, for starters. Moving out of darkness into brighter times and lives less interrupted, is good for another. That we remember, in good times and bad, to lift each other a little, would be the best gift to unwrap. Also, more herring.
As we light the candles, or burn the oil, adding more light each night, I pray that more see in the victory of the Maccabees, and the miracle of the light, a continuing path of religious freedom and social justice, and the will to survive as a People with a purpose.
If you can, please help me to continue bringing the light and publishing MegilLA. I need your subscription to keep this flame burning. If you want to receive each issue, please subscribe.
Happy Chanukah!
Edmon J. Rodman
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GUIDE FOR THE JEWPLEXED
Hanukkah Santa makes an uncomfortable fit
Edmon J. Rodman
If the holiday season didn’t already present enough identity challenges for Jewish households, a new product called a “Hanukkah Santa,” a Santa Claus figurine holding a menorah and draped in a tallit, presents a new wrinkle in the yearly dilemma.
While editorial pieces, like the one in the Washington Post proclaim “Hanukkah isn’t ‘Jewish Christmas,’” Hanukkah Santa wants us to believe it is.
Hawked by online mass marketers Amazon, Wayfair, Overstock, and QVC, the 12-inch-high Santa, which is made in China, with “wired poseable arms,” reaches out to us with an uncomfortable embrace.
In the world of the mall, and Hallmark, many Jews have grown weary of the mixing and misappropriation of important religious symbols at this time of year. The Christmas tree topper shaped like a Star of David (An object that I covered for JTA in 2011 ), the blue and white Santa Suit, the dreidel with Santa on its sides, have one by one made us recognize that as a result of inter-marriage, the move of many from organized religion, as well as the societal urge to merge everything, we have entered a new American wonderland of mixed blessings.
The blended families are not just our own families, but the nation’s as well. Some of the President’s grandchildren are Jewish, and the Vice President’s Jewish husband takes pride in putting up a mezuzah on their official residence.
Where Hanukkah Santa stirs me from my seasonal slumber is in the use of a tallit, or prayer shawl on a figure representing Christmas. The figurine, described by Wayfair as “ready to help with celebrating Hanukkah with his menorah and a Jewish prayer cloth,” and by Overstock as wearing “a scarf around his neck which is white and blue,” is offensive in its misappropriation of a tallit. Not a toy like a dreidel, or symbol like a Star of David, the tallit is a fringed garment commanded in the Torah for Jews to wear.
At the same time, the figurine is enticing to households that are both Jewish and Christian. In the comments sections of each online seller are positive reviews similar to these found on Wayfair: “our grandchildren's mother is not Jewish and celebrates Christmas with Santa Claus,” or, a “Perfect gift for the blended couples!”
In fact, only on Amazon did I find a review that broke the silent night on Hanukkah Santa. “Santa is not Jewish no matter how you look at him,” wrote Kindle Customer. “The tallit is a prayer shawl, worn by Jews when praying (d'oh) and on other RELIGIOUS OCCASIONS.” They conclude “this product is insulting and disgusting. The maker should be ashamed of (choose one) their willful ignorance or their deliberate trivialization of religious practice,” and indignantly asks: “Where is the option for ZERO STARS?”
There is no such option, and on the other sites, most reviewers took a positive view, validating what the marketers already sensed: There is a growing market for such blended holiday decorations.
Is this what we really want: blended everything? Fusion food is fine, but fusion religion?
For younger generations seeking authenticity in their clothing, food, and cultural connections, can Hanukkah Santa be taken for anything but a time-worn joke, or a kitschy reminder of an era where America believed in the melting pot.
Through TV shows like “Finding Your Roots,” and mail-in DNA tests, millions are seeking their authentic identities and cultural origins. We want to know who we are and where we came from; that we can be proud of our cultural, racial, or religious identity. Even if our families are blended, we can still seek out and identify with what makes us us.
As a visual reminder of how we came to be, millions of others are scrap-booking, proudly researching, and creatively binding their family histories for sharing today and tomorrow.
In those scrapbooks, what are the keepsakes that will be passed on? Will we be pasting in photos of a bar or bat mitzvah, a child’s baptism, a wedding under a chuppah, a church wedding, or a Santa doll of painful attire, bearing Jewish symbols that are not his, and decked out in fringe he cannot bless.
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Kiwi sneaks make an historical gift
Elan Rodman
This Chanukah season, the coolest gift available comes as a pair of neon-green, fuzzy brown suede sneakers that evoke a tropical fruit not typically grown in Los Angeles. Aptly named the “Low Hanging Fruit” by Concepts, a sneaker boutique based in Boston, these fresh New Balance 992 sneakers recall the legacy of the kiwi fruit in American culture.
Little do most people know, these tropical kicks with kiwi fruit-colored heels and laces, were inspired by the labor and business acumen of a Jewish Angeleno woman, who transformed American palates and shopping habits.
Frieda Caplan was her name and fruit and veggies from faraway lands was her game. After graduating from UCLA with a Political Science and Economics degree, she went onto working in the produce industry in downtown Los Angeles. Her eponymously named “Frieda’s Specialty Produce” offered Angelenos an opportunity to purchase rare produce for the first time. As a result of her work, a customer could stop by a local market and purchase a shitake mushroom or jicama, food uncommon to markets in the Southern California region.
Sometime in the 1970s, she was approached by a buyer from Safeway, who inquired about her interest in selling “Chinese Gooseberries” (the original name of the Kiwi). She fell in love with the unusual colors and taste of the fruit from New Zealand; and decided to purchase and change the name of the product to “Kiwi.” After 10 years, Americans were hooked and to this day, customers can find kiwis in most major markets and mom and pop vendors.
Concepts referred to Frieda in a blog post, citing her ability as a tastemaker for our taste buds and for her “Impact on Popular Culture.” The shoe was released on November 20th for $220 and came with a special box and an extra pair of shoelaces.
Whether you lace up some or not, it’s such a rare holiday treat to have a pair of sneakers honoring L.A.’s most storied Jewish fruit queen.
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Chanukahs past
Send in the clowns
As this 1963 newspaper ad from the B'nai B'rith Messenger shows, Chanukah, has been a good time for a little clowning around in L.A.'s Jewish community. At the carnival, did Chucko (Played by Charles Runyon on KABC and KTTV in the 50s and early 60s. Hear him HERE) blow up blue and white balloons? Or wear a dreidel on his nose? Following the ad's copy, even today, we cannot help but wonder what was screened at the "Maccabean Matinee."
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Tour re-lights a Jewish connection
The re-lit neon lights of LA’s Broadway glow with the little-known story of the city’s Jewish history. Many of street’s movie palaces, like the Rialto, were built or owned by Jewish showmen, like Sid Grauman, and designed by Jewish architects, like S. Charles Lee. Many other buildings found on Broadway were the homes of Jewish-owned department stores, men’s and women’s clothing shops, jewelry stores, and food markets.
Over the last year, I have been collecting artifacts of Broadway’s past, researching and walking the street, getting a feel for the Jewish life that once flourished there. To share that work with you, I will be leading a walking tour of the street called “Jewish Lights Over Broadway on Sunday, December 19 from 7 to 9 p.m.” Organized with the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, the tour (RESERVATIONS REQUIRED, make them HERE) will illuminate how the Jewish entrepreneurs of Broadway, many of them immigrants, filled the street with bright lights, and the city’s homes with music, the latest in fashion, and the staples required to satisfy a hungry, growing city.
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Seen On the Way: Koreatown
With the message “We Stand Against Hate,” this mural, found on the north side of the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles building, was co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Southwest. In the aftermath of the spa shooting in Atlanta and other acts of hate against Asian-Americans this year, the Consulate reached out to the L.A. Asian community, and the anti-hate mural was created as a result with help from Artists for Israel, and the Korean Federation. The mural, which is near the corner of Olympic and Western, was created by Andrew Hem, an artist who was born during his parents’ escape from Cambodia in the wake of the Khmer Rouge genocide. In a year that has also seen a rise in anti-Semitism, the mural provides some hopeful light this Chanukah season.
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