MegilLA Chanukah Night Eight
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Folks,
Putting on a Chanukah suit for the eighth night of the holiday can be a powerful thing; especially if you're writing. Flames and stars could start shooting out of the screen, and the swords and shields of Maccabees flash before your eyes. Your holiday feelings could grow so intense that “I had a Little Dreidel” suddenly has a bass line that pounds in your ears. Or, conversely, you look in a mirror, and wonder what went wrong in your childhood. Ahhh, the power of clothes, and the miracle of Chanukah.
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Happy Chanukah.
Edmon J. Rodman
HALLMARK'S HANUKKAH
Seeing ourselves in a funhouse mirror
Edmon J. Rodman
During the American holiday season, pandemic or not, Jewish Americans seek out any mirror which can show them a glimpse of themselves. Enveloped, each December, in the majority non-religious Christian culture, we head into the mass media holiday funhouse, where even a distorted image of our Jewishness, is a kind of validation.
With eager eyes, then, we enter the realm of Hallmark, to gaze upon their now yearly gift of a “Jewish” film, this year’s entry: “Love, Lights, Hanukkah!” (Re-running Saturday at 10 p.m. on the Hallmark Channel.)
The Hallmark Channel has produced and aired Christmas films for 11 years now, and many Jews, if pressed, will admit to the guilty red and green pleasure of watching them. From the safe distance of our TV rooms, they allow us to peer in on an idealized and predictable snow globe version of our not particularly religious Christian neighbors’ lives: the selection of trees, the switching on of holiday lights, the decorating of cookies, the cheery singing, the kiss under the mistletoe, and a taste of falling in love on Christmas.
In the made-for-tv film, which builds its plot upon the DNA testing craze, we are introduced to Christina (Mia Kirshner), owner of an Italian restaurant in Cleveland which she inherited from her recently deceased adopted mother. As she prepares for the Christmas season, she gets back the results of a DNA test revealing that she’s 50 percent Jewish.
In a flash, she is informed via email of a close genetic match who lives in nearby Shaker Heights, and she sets up a meeting.
As Christina, who lives in a large home festooned with Christmas decorations in and out, prepares for the meeting we find, surprise, that she is conflicted about the test results. Experiencing her first December dilemma, she wants to honor the tradition of her mom, yet somehow, she also wants to express her newly discovered Jewish heritage.
She wants to do the “right thing,” and at this point, you can only imagine how both the Jewish and non-Jewish audience members who have tuned in might interpret this desire. Is she to be Jewish, or not to be Jewish; that is the question.
Conveniently, the Jewish family to which she is related are there to help her on her eight-day Chanukah journey of self-discovery. It also helps that the family is friends with a single Jewish guy named David Singer (Ben Savage) who loves Italian food.
Together, in her new-found family’s home they celebrate the first night of Chanukah, and it is here where we begin to see the image of ourselves we so desire.
The Jewish family is warm, caring, and welcoming. They even sing the blessings on- key. David is especially warm, and eager to make Christina feel comfy in her new cultural surroundings, and this, too, is how we see our best selves when someone who is not Jewish comes to call. We want to welcome the stranger, and in this portrayal the film’s reflection of an ideal of Jewish culture is spot on.
Yet, this Hallmark holiday film, though appealing to Jews, is really more for Christian viewers who want or need to find a way to integrate Jews into their lives or world views. By carefully exposing them to a Hallmark view of Judaism, explaining a little about Jewish family life and customs, this film is a good thing; that is, until the mirror begins to distort.
Beginning with the unlikely wreath of blue shiny balls on the door of the Jewish home, we are presented with a family that is relatable to Christmas-celebrating viewers.
Also, we are never shown David’s family, or hear their response to his growing affection for a woman who clearly wants to hang on to who she has been. David is no Tevye, but it would have been nice to hear him weigh the life issues that Christina’s dilemma might create in a relationship.
Then there is the two equal holidays thing “I can celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas every year,” says Christina, demonstrating the false equivalence which many Jews and Christians resist, and upon which the film relies.
Though the film represents a certain level of cultural acceptance, even desirability of Jews, it still reflects a childlike take on Chanukah and Judaism, as if the entire Jewish experience can be contained in a snow globe filled with deli food and blue and white-wrapped gifts.
It’s a distortion of course. But you have to wonder if that reflection is becoming our own self view.
With at-risk communities such as Pico Union being disproportionately affected by the pandemic, on Friday December 18th, the last day of Chanukah, the Pico Union Project (PUP) will host a community flu Clinic. The free vaccines, made available through Cedars Sinai Medical Center, will be administered between 9 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. at 1153 Valencia St.
"A flu shot is the best way to protect yourself and your family during the flu season," said Jonathan Grein, MD, Cedars-Sinai's medical director of Hospital Epidemiology. "Because it can take up to two weeks for the vaccine to provide protection against flu, the time to get the shot is before the flu season clicks into high gear."
Along with the flu shots, “fresh produce to help our families celebrate the new year with joy and good health” will be given, said PUP.
Feeling a little bluish now that Chanukah is almost over? The Los Angeles Public Library can help you extend the season with books and films. “While adult fiction books (and films) centered on the Hanukkah holiday are few and far between,” the library says, “There are plenty of amazing Jewish authors whose works have found their way to the big screen.” Whether you are looking for humor, romance, or drama, they have something to help you extend that Jewish feeling. Peruse a list of suggest books and films HERE.
Seen on the Way/ Pico Blvd.
Combining two Chanukah treats like barbecue brisket and sufganiyot could be a risky experiment, but Western Kosher, 4817 W. Pico Blvd., has pulled it off. Now, if it could have only last eight days.