Christmas – From Under the Fig Tree

Writing on faith

joselitJanuary 13, 2011November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Guest post by Menachem Wecker

During the Q&A period of a Dec. 1 event at the National Press Club titled "Why journalists must understand religion," I asked Sally Quinn, founder and moderator of the Washington Post's On Faith, if it was an advantage for reporters to approach the religion beat with insider knowledge of the faiths they are covering.

typewriter — Credit: Flickr user Helen Black.

After all, I've found that some of my most creative stories have stemmed from a nuanced understanding of rabbinic and biblical Judaism, whether it was noticing Hebrew typos in William Blake's paintings, mistranslations in the promotional materials of Hebrew inscriptions on rings in a gift shop at a mega-church or examining seemingly incongruous visual elements (like rabbit hunts or twisted pillars) in Jewish illuminated manuscripts and synagogues.

On the other hand, I've written for Catholic, Arab American and Mormon publications, and invariably, I learn the most from writing for those audiences, because I'm forced to do more research and to double- and triple-check my work.

Ms. Quinn responded that experience clearly helps a reporter understand the story, but it is not a prerequisite to good reporting.

I was replaying the Press Club event in my head when my editor at the Houston Chronicle asked me to write a news story for the paper on Christmas. It sounds like the beginning of an off-color joke: a kid named Menachem starts writing a story on Christmas art...

I have to say, though, that in the process of researching the story -- which ran Dec. 23 as "Fine Art displays haven't forsaken the Nativity" -- I definitely found myself enjoying the process all the more so because I knew I was treading holy water.

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, an adjunct professor of religious art and cultural history at Georgetown University, sent me a handful of articles and chapters she’d written on the subject, and I happily and hungrily devoured them word for word -- several times each.

I also got a kick out of emailing back and forth with art blogger Tyler Green, who had created an online Adventist and Chanukah calendar on the micro-blogging platform Tumblr.

Some might say that chutzpah draws me to non-Jewish stories, but I prefer to see it as an expression of a different Jewish value: sakranut, or curiosity -- the same sentiment that motivated the famous monkey Curious George, who according to the latest wisdom, might even have been Jewish himself.

What would Curious George have had to say about Christmas art? Probably not a whole lot, but I can just see him getting caught up in some mischief as he tried to track Santa (b. 1881) down to personally deliver his wish list -- sure to be a whole lot of bananas.

Ringing in the holidays

joselitDecember 7, 2010November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Those who, for one reason or another, stand outside the frame of Yuletide cheer often find their voices muted come Christmas. The singing of "Silent Night" leaves us, well, silent.

Not so, the protagonist of "The Loudest Voice," one of the most celebrated of Grace Paley's many singular contributions to American arts and letters.

Lilly Rivlin at premiere of Grace Paley: Collected Shorts. Photo by Steve Rhodes.

In this short story, the young Shirley Abramowitz is recruited to play the voice of Jesus in her public school's annual Christmas pageant. "They told me you had a particularly loud, clear voice and read with lots of expression. Could that be true?" inquires Mr. Hilton, who is in search of a "child with a strong voice, lots of stamina." Flattered, Shirley agrees eagerly to become Jesus, if only for an afternoon. ("'It was a long story, it was a sad story…. Sorrowful and loud, I declaimed about love and God and Man.'")

Shirley's immigrant parents don't quite know what to make of this turn of events. Perhaps it's a good thing, muses her father, Misha. "What's the harm? You're in America." Shirley's mother, Clara, doesn't quite share his cautious optimism.

Eventually, though, she comes round, too. Told by a nosy neighbor that a number of Christian students in the school were not given parts in the play, she responds: "'What could Mr. Hilton do? They got very small voices; after all, why should they holler? ... You think it's so important that they should get in the play? Christmas …the whole piece of goods … they own it.'"

For the entire Abramowitz family, the opportunity to give voice to Jesus turns out be more of an opportunity to embrace America than a betrayal of Jewish history. "I expected to be heard," Shirley says. "My voice was certainly the loudest."

So, too, was Grace Paley's voice, which left a profound imprint on the American imagination. At once droll and wry, piercing and heart-tugging, it will be heard next semester when the students in Faye Moskowitz's "Jewish Literature Live" will read her collected works as well as screen a brand new documentary, "Grace Paley: Collected Shorts," directed by Lilly Rivlin, a GW alum.

Meanwhile, stay tuned as "From Under the Fig Tree" will soon introduce a brand-new feature: a radio blog. Fittingly enough, its very first guest will be none other than Faye Moskowitz, who will take to the airwaves to discuss Grace Paley, E. L. Doctorow and the other distinguished writers and critics who will grace her classroom and GW's campus next year.

Hanukkah humbug

joselitDecember 3, 2010November 16, 2017Leave a comment

In this season of good will and holiday cheer, Howard Jacobson, the Booker Prize-winning author of The FInkler Question and a guest last term of GW’s English Department, has made mincemeat of Hanukkah. Taking to The New York Times to make his case, he suggests that this Jewish holiday has outlived its usefulness — if, in fact, it had any in the first place.

Hanukkah, argues the British novelist in a cascading procession of paragraphs, simply fails to engage the contemporary imagination. Nothing about it — the food, the ritual, the music — can hold a candle to Christmas. "The cruel truth is that Hanukkah is a seasonal festival of light in search of a pretext," he writes, sidestepping history in favor of sociology. The best Jacobson can say of the holiday is that its name is "lovely." Really now.

As I made my way through the piece, I couldn't help but wonder whether Jacobson actually meant what he said or whether, his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, he was making light — and sport — of those who continually fault Hanukkah for not being Christmas.

Honestly, I couldn't tell. And I suspect other New York Times readers couldn't, either. Are we meant to chuckle at Jacobson's drollery, at his faux ho-ho-ho attitude towards Hanukkah? Or are we to take his thoughts to heart and give up on this age-old festival?

I, for one, hope that Jacobson is up to his usual tricks and is toying with us. If he isn't, well, some things are best left unsaid.