Gift-giving

Casting about for the perfect Hanukkah gift? Today, most of us don’t think twice about showering our children with presents when the Festival of the Maccabees bears down upon us. On the contrary. If we didn’t give a gift or two or three, we’d feel as if we were shortchanging the holiday, let alone our offspring.

But that wasn’t always the case. American Jewish parents of an earlier generation had to be encouraged to associate the ancient holiday with the modern practice of gift-giving. “If ever lavishness in gifts is appropriate, it is on Hanukkah,” trilled the authors of What Every Jewish Woman Should Know, a compendium of helpful household hints that debuted in the 1940s.

Back then, American Jews were trying on Hanukkah for size, assessing just how far holiday celebrations could go in postwar America. Some turned to food, churning out bite-sized Maccabees made out of tuna fish, then well on its way to becoming a staple of the American Jewish diet. Others looked to holiday décor, coming up with brightly colored, Papier-mâché decorations to festoon home & hearth. And still others took up song, composing warmhearted ditties to the dreidel.

Many of those songs, along with Christmas melodies written or sung by American Jews, have been recently assembled and freshly repackaged by the Idelsohn Society in a light-hearted and amusing compilation called ‘Twas the Night Before Hanukkah. Listening to the CD will put you in the right holiday mood.

But then, since I had the good fortune to contribute an essay to the liner notes that accompany these musical offerings, I’m hardly an unbiased observer. Even so, take it from me: ‘Twas the Night Before Hanukkah will make a terrific Hanukkah gift.