To tree or not to tree, that is the question

There is so much intermarriage in Judaism these days that ornament makers are churning out Star of David tree toppers and similar ornaments, my favorite being the Hanukkah menorah.

I have a favorite, yes, because we have all three kinds on the Xmas tree my Baptist-turned-atheist wife would be bereft without and might even divorce me over—unlike this chap who persists in refusing his converted wife’s very secular plea for one.

I understand him and other Jews who refuse to countenance such a thing, but having already capitulated in what some see as a holy war, I like to fall back on history.

Xmas trees were pagan (bad enough for some Jews, of course) to begin with, such that even the former Soviet Union felt comfortable with them under a slightly different name.

So it’s more than ironic that today they are so intensively identified with Christianity. Indeed, back in mid-19th century America when what was then a secular European tradition began to become popular, many Christians flatly refused to consider them.

“I don’t worship the tree,” was a common explanation of those who resisted. They lost, obviously, as I suspect many intermarried Jews are going to lose in the end, and then we’ll see whether and how things change.