We’re having an early Christmas dinner at my house. My wife’s family is coming over. The tree, which we got yesterday, is in the front door, and my wife asked me to hang lights on it today as she cleaned the house, getting ready.
I resisted a tree for years; my wife says those were the only years she didn’t have a tree. Yet, there it is.
I feel anxiety about the fact that I have some neighbors who are Zionists. On their bookshelves, as on mine, is a copy of The Case for Israel, by Alan Dershowitz. Suffice it to say they have the book for different reason.
The front door is mostly glass. I am afraid they will see the tree in the door, lit up, and what will they think? I said to myself, Well Theodor Herzl was a Christmas-tree Jew. I will tell them that.
When I told my wife about my fears, she said, "Are you afraid that they will see you? Maybe you should put on a costume." Santa Claus, she says, or Darth Vader.
Phil, what a clifhanger: what will they think?
You must know to be afraid, but for gentile like me its a mystery.
Phil, your neighbors aren’t going to say a thing! They will just smile weakly and mutter “Happy Holidays”. They’re not stupid, they know that one untoward word and they will end up gutted, spitted, and broiling slowly over an open flame in Mondoweiss, then picked to pieces unmercifully in comments.
In fact, if they’re smart, they will interpret your post in the spirit in which it was probably written; as a warning shot across their bows.
Would anybody, Jewish neighbours included, take on board possibility that this may be Philip’a wife’s tree in her own hallway? She, presumably, is free to enjoy religious and cultural events in her own home, isn’t she?
Or are they assuming that husband’s religious and cultural preferences have to be given priority and woman’s place is to submit? Is some of the anxiety about who’s lifestyle is predominant, and how it reflects on Phil’s position as “a head of the family”?
Your neighbors will wonder if you are still Jewish.
But, in the end, its just a tree.
Witty, stop being so nice. You know it’s not about the tree.
“Witty, stop being so nice. You know it’s not about the tree.”
Wow! We got us a healthy one, here! I mean, I can just see thousands of Americans, of all religions, swearing eternal fealty to Zionism if it can produce specimens of mental stability and balance like this vilder chaiah, Julian!
“Your neighbors will wonder if you are still Jewish.”
He Richard, you ever heard the word “officious”? Man, you got a case of it!
“Your neighbors will wonder if you are still Jewish.
But, in the end, its just a tree.”
Apparently not, or there would be no case for wonder, at least in your mind.
Would putting up a Christmas tree be seen as some sort of slap at orthodox (in the general sense) behavior, akin to wearing raggedy and holed cutoff jeans to work when its not free-dress Friday? Anyone who would think ill of Phil for putting up a tree at his wife’s request is astoundingly petty and self-involved. My mind tells me to feel contempt, but my heart just can’t muster anything more than pity.
“Your neighbours will wonder if you are still Jewish”.
So unless Phil prevents his non-jewish wife from enjoying and celebrating Christmas, and scrubs the house of any non-jewish religeous symbols, customs and observances his Jewishness will expire? Is tolerating other people’s practice of religion in the join living quarters incompatible with being Jewish?
Remember, Eva! It’s Jewish AND democratic!
I vaguely think that there was a time when the tree for most Western people symbolised festivity rather than Christianity and I think that’s how it should be taken still. It’s not a particularly Christian symbol and is of recent introduction in the Christian world. (I don’t think it plays any part in ‘A Christmas Carol’.) The demand for menorahs and crescents are admissions that we can’t celebrate together and so weakens our shared humanity. Merry solstice.
I actually feel sorry for you. You know very well what they think of you and it really disturbs you.
Sure Julian, and if Phil would just hate Arabs and love Israel, it’d all get better right away.
BTW, chump (that’s Yiddish for “chump”, chump) are you working in 8, 16, or the full 36mm. today? With Cinema-scope and Dolby-Stereo, too, I’ll wager.
A little upset loser? Did you get a job yet? I can find something for you licking envelopes. Since it would be your first real job I won’t get angry if you screw up.
If your hero worries about his neighbors not liking him, it’s just too bad, he will have to live with it. His weakness really amuses me.
Did you get a job yet?
Where did you learn a dirty word like that?
His mother, shouting down to the basement when he’s slept past noon again, would be my guess.
Is it worse to have a tree if it is a pagan tree or a Christian tree? (Certainly in either case it is a secular tree, maybe even an atheist tree.)
Theodor Herzl had a tree, but can you really use Herzl as your prototype? In what way? Because Herzl would have been an assimilationist if the German or Viennese society would have had him, does that allow you to point to Herzl and say, I’m just like him? The concept antiZionism is the new Zionism is a bit too “way out” to take literally.
What religion is tinsel? If you use candles, is it a Zoroastrian tree? If you use blue lights can you call it a Hanukkah bush?
If (pre-Zionist) Herzl had been born after ~1960 in America, he would have been ‘accepted’ by most people, and by a far, far greater degree than most non-caucasian minorities are even today. What are the chances he would have become a Zionist activist? Does anyone think that he would have needed to? Would an accepted American-Herzl have become an anti-Zionist, angry at American Zionists for trying to screw things up for him and his family by actively serving the interests of a foreign state at the expense of his home nation, and leaving him open to charges from less discerning observers of dual loyalty or disloyalty via guilt by association?
you can call it anything you want. it is a pagan tradition that has been adopted as a christian tradition.
Something, of course, that we have never done! Our religion comes straight from G-d, wholesale!
If anyone wishes to refrain from shaking a lulav because they think it is pagan or from putting on tefillin because it is pagan, I have no problem with that.
…which has now morphed into a winter celebration that transcends religion. So what if it is celebrated on what used to be a pagan festival?
I’d go the full hog and put a minature stable at the foot of the tree, and a star on top.
“What Do You Care What Other People Think?” is the title of a book of autobiographical stories of Richard Feynman.
I have a Christmas tree Phil, but then, I’m a Christian.
I think the real question here, the one question that is implied in everything you post is this:
Is Phil a Jew? And, if so, in what way?
Probably in every way that you are not. Serious case of jew-envy you got there. Mooser will explain.
Jeez, I’ll give Witty this, he, at least shows some awareness there is actually a civilised world out there beyond the ziocaine haze, and he makes at least a pretense of being part of it. Sure, he writes a lot in defense of Israel, so he’s bound to trip up once in a while. But hell, at least he tries!
But these guys? They never fail to leave me wondering if they aren’t anti-Semitic provocatuers, eager, vying with each other to validate as many anti-Semitic libels as they can each day.
Sure, Ohio Joe, you just keep making it plain that Christian Zionist supporters are people who demand to know and pass judgement on other’s religious feelings, that will make Zionists and their supporters just soooo popular with Americans.
But you keep it up, Ohio Joe, I can tell you from long experience there is nothing Jews (especially, but everybody else too) likes better than being accusatorily questioned about their religion like that. You are a real credit to your church. Which one is it by the way, so I can congratulate the Minister?
Please explain to us, Joe, what Phil’s religious affiliation means to you, and what you know about the “ways” in which people are Jewish.
This oughta be good, if he answers.
Is Phil a Jew? And, if so, in what way?
You’re an asshole. OJ.
,” I’m a Christian.”
You don’t need to tell us that, Joe. Your every letter just reeks of forebearance, cheek-turning, reliance on God’s mercy and love for your fellow-man.
And please, turn down that halo, the glare is hurting my eyes!
“Is Phil a Jew?” Please, Ohio Joe, tell us your Christian standards for what a Jew is.
Okay, I got a confession to make! I worked at a Christmas-tree farm a couple of seasons. It’s out in Poulsbo on Minder Rd. (?) and was run by a former WW2 German Army prisoner, who ended up there after the war. He was a skiing buddy and a climbing companion of Heinrich Harrer, you know, “White Spider” and “I come from the Stone Age” (A book I will always love because it introduced me too the native culture of Papua, New Guinea, where I hope to retire some day) Anyway, my wife along with some other members of her family worked summer jobs there when he raised raspberries, but he later switched to Christmas trees. You know, one of those U-Cut places.
Anyway, never again! It was horrible! Mostly, it was the screaming which got to me. A wail of sheer terror, with the knowledge of impending death, as the saw first bit into the bark. And those barbarians would drive off with the poor thing still bleeding and gasping on top of their over-sized SUV, and ask me “how to get the sap off the windshield” That’s if they didn’t make some kind of excuse and insist I cut it for them. I think they knew it bothered me, and they delighted in it. And, mind you, these were trees I had gotten to know all summer, weeding and tending their fields, constantly being surprised and refreshed at their maturity and stability. Sure, these were adolescent trees, sometimes they needled each other, but you always knew where they would be, they never ran out on you. And they never made a sap of me. I guess somehow I pushed it to the back of my mind, what was going to happen to these trees, maybe I didn’t think it would finally, really happen… and then came December. And they were so goddam brave, too, so noble, although some of the less expensive trees did pine a bit. Not one tried to escape, when it came to the end.
I quit, of course, but the episode has haunted me for years, and I still shudder every time the dog barks. Even if its up the wrong tree.
Wild Man Fischer gives some background on his life as a Hanukkah bush. link to youtube.com
. Incidentally, he’s barking.
I’ll try to help you guys out.
Imagine a guy, let’s call him Farid Wass, who runs a blog devoted to discrediting the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. In addition, when possible, he reports on the misdeeds of other Muslims in other contexts. Why do you feel the need, some ask, to devote so much energy to this cause? It is because of my duty as a Muslim, Farid answers. But Farid, you reject all tenets and beliefs of Islam! You married a Jew! You light a Menorah and place it in your window! You refuse to eat pita made by Muslims in our local bakery because they support the Palestinian cause!
Yes, but my fellow Muslims are silent on the beastliness of the Palestinians. I will not be silent.
Farid Farid, we cry! You are merely using your status as a Muslim to provide cover for your anti-Palestinianism.
Better?
It’s rich to see the Xtozionists judging the Jewishness of Jews.
I wonder if OJ married a Jew and thus rejected all the tenets and beliefs of Christianity. It’d be interesting to see him questioned by the Inquisition on the purity of his faith. Homoousion or Homoiousion?
Wow, that is actually a pretty powerful analogy OJ.
yonira, you have all the discernment of a sponge. Phil has “rejected all the tenets and beliefs of Judaism”? Because he married a Christian? Because he rejects the worship of the Zionist golden calf?
Put it in the positive, if you want. What makes Phil more Jewish than me?
Most Jews don’t watch NASCAR?
Riiiight. Thank as always Chaos. Last time we met you called me a white racist, no? Or was it closeted homosexual, neocon, unAmerican, would-sell-his-brother-sailors-to-the-Jews, hillbilly, trailer-trash, zionist? Either you think the most powerful insult is to call someone just what he is (so you keep trying) or you’re desperately curious about me.
I live in Ohio, I am Mexican-American on my father’s side and Cajun (you’d say “white trash”) on my mother’s side. I work for the state EPA. I spent 8 years in the Navy and made many good friends in Israel, Denmark, and France–and as a result I travel a lot. I have a wife and three daughters. I vote Democrat, usually. I like Obama. I love America, I really like Israel, France, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, and Australia. I defend any one of those nations when I feel they are being singled out for attack.
re-read what he said, i think you may be confused.
So according to your own words, you just blindly support a country just because you “like” them.
We get it now.
Troll on.
What are you whining about, Jimmy?
Put it in the positive, if you want. What makes Phil more Jewish than me?
Easy there OJ, we know you love to muddle your self in racist remarks, but antisemitism now?
Cmon buddy =P
Desperately curious about you? Yeah, keep living that fantasy. Look, OJ, we already know you’ll say whatever it takes to get a rise out of people. I’ll believe you were in the Navy because you actually fit the psych pattern of “crazed pseudo-patriotic just-following-orders-at-all-costs militant” that, unfortunately, represents a very vocal minority of the US military (that is usually quite successful at drowning out the sane voices — as pretty much every Middle East misadventure of a war we’ve had thus far as shown).
I don’t care if you claimed you were had a Kenyan father and you grew up on Hawaii before going on to get a degree in Constitutional law. We can all see for ourselves what you are by the nature of your posts.
You are the salt of the earth OhioJoes.
But Farid, you reject all tenets and beliefs of Islam! You married a Jew!
Someone is confused, all right.
You are the salt of the earth OhioJoes.
Well, there you have it. Julian has spoken: “OhioJoes: Official House N*gger of Zionists”. I’ll print the t-shirts.
Ohio has a long way to go to gain that title! G.W. Bush carried it for years, and Jimmy Carter reaches out in his own awkward way–his fellow Georgians recognize him as the politician that he is. Would it cause too much trouble to give Obama the nod? That would be a controversial t-shirt!
Your patheitc. The palestinians? They don’t love Palestine? As for defending Mexico I wonder if that includes, you know, Mexicans?
James, we first scented Ohio Joe at Glenn Greenwald’s blog. He was exposed as a serial liar, and a flimsy fabricator of his experience within a few hours.
So he came over here.
Whoops, he just did it again. All of his letters at Salon are on file, and he just created an entirely new persona and history for himself.
So he’s not a Mexican-American-Cajun Navy veteran working for the state EPA who spent 8 years in the Navy (did he mention that he’s a veteran?) and made many good friends in Israel, Denmark, and France, who has a wife and three daughters, likes Obama, loves America, and really likes Israel, France, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, and Australia, and who will defend any one of those nations when he feels that they are being singled out for attack?
Does state EPA hire auditors? Make Witty’s Chrismas a season of hope.
I assume you guys aren’t deliberately lying, but I’ve never posted in Salon, and I don’t know who the other website (greenwals) is. So no, not me.
Apart from the bit where Jewishness is an ethnicity AS WELL as a religion, whereas being Muslim is simply a description of one’s faith.
If that wasn’t the case, then why are all secular Jews called Jews?
There are plenty of websites like that OJ, why don’t you go troll over there.
But of course thats not the point whatsoever.
When Muslims in countries with large Muslim majorities do something retarded the mainstream media is ALL over it. Muslim organizations from all over the planet condemn the activity, including EVERY mainstream Islamic organization in the United States. I don’t recall CAIR or MPAC defending Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, the Janjaweed, or any other nefarious group that happens to identity with Islam in any way if even remotely.
However, when it comes to Israel and their crimes against humanity things aren’t the same. We have our entire congress defending the bombing of babies with fire bombs, our mainstream media REFUSING to report on the I/P conflict in a fair manner due to fear of a Zionist backlash, and virtually every mainstream Jewish organization in the country is supportive of most Israeli atrocities, including J-Street.
When Israel commits a crime, that crime is whitewashed by the mainstream media. When Muslims commit a crime its not only blown out of proportion but it is then used to fuel the flame of Islamophobia in this country.
And that my friend is the difference. What Phil is doing is using his identity of a Jew to help us move forward as a nation that has had its morality bankrupted by supporting a racist colonizing apartheid state.
I don’t see any mainstream Islamic organizations defending the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, or any other place where they are mistreated, I don’t see them defending Osama Bin Ladin, suicide bombing, or “Dhimmis.”
But everyday I turn on CNN or FOX news I see some pundit defending Israeli ethnic cleansing while our congressmen vote overwhelmingly to send more and more of MY tax dollars to accelerate the process. My money ain’t going to the Janjaweed, it goes to fund the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people by European colonizers.
RE: “I am afraid they will see the tree in the door, lit up, and what will they think?” – Philip
ME: Have you considered topping the tree with a brightly lit Star of David? I wish I could be the there to flock the tree for you. If I do say so myself, I’m an expert at flocking Christmas trees. Don’t use the white snow. The very pale blue snow actually looks ‘whiter’ (if you get my drift).
P.S. Always flock the tree (with faux snow) before “hanging” the lights. Otherwise, it’s a real mess! I learned that a long, long time ago.
RE: “Always flock the tree (with faux snow) before “hanging” the lights.”
MY COMMENT: Or is it vice versa (the other way around)? Time plays such childish tricks on the mind.
Phil’s post reminded me how for years we were the only Jewish family in a Christian neighborhood. I remember often feeling awkward and insecure at how naked our undecorated house would look during Christmas season with only the tiny Menorah in the widow. Life goes on and now I find myself divorced, remarried and an atheist in the Sam Harris mode. My wife’s views are similar to mine. We put up a Christmas tree but it is bereft of any religious significance what so ever. It’s more of a when in Rome sort of thing. Must admit though, it does seem to my my daughter’s husband a bit uncomfortable but he is getting use to it. Interesting thing is that many Jews seem to find it enlighted when Christians adopt some of their symbols such as the family I know that that places a Menorah along side their tree, but find it offensive when Jews even have any recognition Christmas in your home. Of course, a place of business is another story.
RE: “Putting the anxiety back in Christmas” – Weiss
MY COMMENT: Based upon some of the dreams you have related to us (decapitated horse heads, subway platform sing-a-longs, etc), I don’t think it takes much to put anxiety in your Christmas. But doggone it, people like you anyway!
DISCLAIMER: Like Stuart Smalley, I am not a licensed therapist.
It amazes me how much time even semi-assimilated Jews like Phil spend fretting over their Jewish identity. I’m of mixed descent (English, Irish, Italian and Austrian) and I’ve never spent so much as five minutes total my entire life worrying about it. But to Phil and some other Jews here one’s ancestry (and the apparent need to maintain some tribal identity) is some huge issue. For the life of me I can’t figure out why, unless it is that other Jews call you out for straying outside the fold.
Duscany- Until reading your comment just now, I thought that Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds was just an exploitative entertaining film, but now I realize it could be educational. Would one think that Shoshana could take her ancestry as lightly as you take yours? Of course not. Certainly Phil didn’t have his family machine gunned next to him under the floor boards of a French dairy farmer, but he was born ten years or so after a third of his (Shlomo Sand notwithstanding) people were wiped out. (and if that’s not enough mix in a quart of God, two tablespoons of deicide and three gallons of guilt over Jewish misdeeds in the middle east and the Congress). Then see if all you can come up with is “other Jews call you out for straying from the fold.”
I am not sure I would want to rely on a Quentin Tarantino film for historical evidence.
Duscany? I think you deserve a medal for showing nigh superhuman levels of tact in the face of overwhelming Zionist idiocy.
Seriously, what’s next, WJ? “Pulp Fiction” as a travel guide to Los Angeles? How about “Kill Bill” as a though-provoking exploration of the feminist movement in the modern American multicultural context?
mixed descent? — according to the pedigree you give you’re all gentile.
“mixed descent? — according to the pedigree you give you’re all gentile.”
Yes, four different gentile tribes, not one of which I worship or obsess over.
If I didn’t read this crap for myself, I wouldn’t believe it!
Can anybody give me an explanation which covers the facts as well as my “ziocaine” diagnosis?
I’m convinced; opening a comments section was the cruelest thing Phil could ever have done to the zionists. It’s like giving a child a hand-grenade after pulling the pin.
Epstein is actually a “Kibrew”:
War Against Christmas 2009: A Jewish Perspective
By Marcus Epstein
link to vdare.com
More on Epstein:
Tom Tancredo Staffer Pleads Guilty to Karate-Chopping Black Woman
link to washingtonindependent.com
But not all Epsteins are so respectful of the sensibilities of their host society:
Epstein has settled 4 lawsuits filed by women claiming abuse at his Palm Beach mansion
link to palmbeachpost.com
AF – what the fuck are you on about?
Honestly, potsherd, it looks like AF has gone off the Stormfront deep end and now he’s just spouting off crimes undertaken by individuals who happen to be Jewish as if that is somehow relevant to a discussion of Judaism in general.
In short, he’s taken an overt hard-right in to anti-Semitism and I’d recommend not getting anywhere near where he’s going at this point.
Phil, after what your wife endured at thanksgiving, you owe her! I hope you put the lights on with a merry, cheerful smile, and invited your neighbors in for some eggnog.