The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent out an email today saying that the chain that owns Long John Silver's restaurant in Minnesota has apologized for giving out a toy to child patrons with a bible passage on it. A Muslim family found this offensive. I was reminded of my childhood, when my mother tracked every move of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the amazing atheist who hated the church and got prayer banned from schools. My mother cheered her on, and so did I, for expanding the secular space in society.
Today, notwithstanding the motions of the ADL, I think most Jews are largely indifferent to this kind of thing. Because we no longer feel threatened by Christian religious activity. I can't imagine many Jews getting bent out of shape by a toy at a fast-food restaurant with a bible verse. But I can understand why Muslims feel that way. They're really outsiders.
I'm just reflecting on the transformation of my community. Tonight at my wife's family's not-very-religious Christmas Eve dinner, everyone was talking about Madoff–including a report that people tried to join his Jewish country club in Palm Beach so that they could get their money into his hands. This wasn't a conversation about outsiders: it was a conversation about an American elite. As I note often on this site, Jews are the most wealthy American group by religion, and there are countless sociological consequences of that elevation. Bernie Madoff is controlling billions, countless members of Obama's team are Jewish, and I'm at a Christmas Eve dinner in Connecticut feeling perfectly at home (and so are tons of other Jews).
I know I'm repeating old themes. I don't care. There isn't a broad recognition of the Jewish presence in American society, at the top. I'm not nostalgic for the days that my mother was upset about Christian displays. I'm saying, Let's move forward, but do so with more humility and understanding. (And I didn't even mention Middle East policy).
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U.S. is larger a religious country and majoroty of them are chritian and i think
if they want to say merry chrismass instead of happy holidays they should be allowd to without fearing the rath of moslems, jews, hindus, and people of other faith or no faith at all. hear in toronto i have seen a couple of moslems and jewish people get realy mad at sales people for saying merry chrismass instead of happy holidays so i don't think being an outsider or insider has anything to do with it some people just are in bad mood all the time
A merry Yule to you Phil – and will you please ask your webmaster to remove all the malicious XSS script from this site, so that those of us using script blockers can still log in?
Happy Hannukah (sp?) Mr. Weiss!
I hope you have the strength to continue this website. It's really priceless. Few writers dare to talk about Jewish issues with honesty and vigor. Keep on rollin'…
Phil's mother, and many Jews like her, waged and are waging a cultural jihad in America against Christians.
Every aborted baby is a win.
Obviously, Christians lost the Culture War. Cheers to your victory on Christmas Day!
But culture war is not the subject of this blog. This blog is about Jewish political influence and American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Once again, it is obvious that Jews are winning on this front as well. Every dead American soldier in Iraq is a testament to that.
Patrick, not "Jews are winning" on the front of American ME policy, Zionists are winning. There's a difference, you know.
Ditto. Also, 'Christians' didn't lose the culture war. The struggle against secular excess vastly predates Christianity, and has no intrinsically religious component at all. Recall the Roman sumptuary laws. That struggle, it is not a battle (why must everything be militarized?), will never be over. And as for Christians losing … I am a Christian, and I'm not losing. We all do our little part, you only lose when you quit, or give into hatred and anger. Merry Christmas!
And why was Phil's mother upset about Christmas displays ?
I assume her family came to America knowing full well it wasn't a jewish state so why should she be upset?
"Mind your own business" seems like a good thing to apply. No one is forcing anyone to partake in any religion or tradition.
Those who don't like Christmas should ignore it and mind their own business.
Or maybe we should all object to congress closing down for a jewish holiday.
Yea, that's it… let's have a war to ban anything that offends our itty bitty little personal quirks.
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"There ain't no sanity clause." — Chico Marx
Those who don't like Christmas should ignore it and mind their own business.
Oh yeah. And highways, those who don't like highways should just ignore them and "mtob".
And television.
And Iraq and Iran and Korea, and global warming.
Oh wait, we're pretending Christmas is just a nice joyful happy religious celebration, so it doesn't have anything in common with all the rest of that.
We're pretending it wasn't artificially manufactured to take the place of all those pagan festivals of light and giving in the midst of winter deprivation.
We're pretending Jesus actually was born on December 25th. Well no, we're not pretending that. But we are pretending there's nothing pavlovian about it.
Say hey now, Colin, every time you give a child a present that child's going to imprint everything connected with that present.
Yay Christmas!
Yay Santa Claus!
Yay Jesus!
Yay!
O Come All Ye Faithful!
O COme O Come Emanuel!
"and ransom captive I-i-s-ra-el.
that mourns in lonely e-ex-ile here"
etc.
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