Comments on Yay! We Beat the Pushy Jews

Well, Josh, you can always put your money where your mouth is and fight on where the rabbi left off. But, even though I agree with you in principle, we both know no one cares enough (not even you) to fight "the man" over some fucking christmas trees.

The "Christmas trees don't symbolize Christmas" argument kind of makes my head spin.

Reading some of those comments made me feel really sick, especially the ones that told Jews to "go back where they came from." For me, that would mean going back to Poland where my grandparent's shtetl was before it was systematically destroyed. I could go hang out at the mass grave that my grandpas (both!) were lucky enough to have avoided, and who were lucky enough to come to this country where they could practice their religion freely. As long as they keep quiet about it, apparently.

Meanwhile as far as the stranger is concerned defaming muslims is A-OK...

I still think the painting of Kramer will solve this. Sea-Tac pays a healthy sum for the piece of fine art, skip the Duchampian moustache, settle for a photoshopped menorah, and everybody will be laughing to the beat of those Seinfeld dvd stocking stuffers.

Boy, this post does a great job of reminding me how mind-bendingly stupid religion is and how much I would like to see it expunged from our culture.

As a non-Jew from the aggressively Catholic Chicago suburbs, I can remember menorahs, chocolate coins and other kitschy Chanukah stuff incorporated into my public schools' holiday-season curricula all the way back to grade school. Thus, none of this Jewish stuff was a big deal to me or anyone I knew -- ever.

My point: What the holy hell is wrong with these people? Why couldn't the port just put up some dinky menorah in front of a Rosetta Stone "Learn to Speak Chinese" kiosk? Where did these anti-Semite message-board-posters grow up, and how come I have no idea where they're coming from?

Because of the War on Christmas, I for one am now totally anti-war.

Noone can appreciate Dada, because we're still in the era of pre-Dada. When they refer to the art period 70-some years ago as Dada, that is just another lie about history.

Um, numerous courts have ruled that Christmas trees are NOT a religious symbol. Yes, I know that "Christ" is in Christmas tree, but legally it is considered a cultural symbol, not a religious one. There are lots of people, like me, who no more believe in Christ than the Loch Ness Monster, but still enjoy a pretty Christmas tree and sharing gifts and pigging out on too much food and so on, with no religious overtones whatsoever.

Likewise, there is also case law ruling that a menorah is a "cultural", not a religious symbol. Crosses, Star of Davids, manger scenes, etc., are all religious symbols. Yah, I know, most people mix them all up. But legally there is a difference.

So the Rabbi had every right to ask to have a "cultural" symbol of the holiday season put up to go with the Christmas trees. And the port wouldn't even be risking having to put up pentagrams or assorted Hindu gods or whatever too.

People should not be pissed at the Rabbi. He made his perfectly legit request ages ago. They should be pissed at the idiots managing the airport for dragging their feet and then overreacting at the last minute.

I'm just wondering when Christians are actually going to realize that their lord and savior, Jesus Christ, was indeed a Jew and that he never gave up his Jewish identity...at least that anyone knows of. Christians really should be more sensitive to Jewish customs and include them because, well, they are all basically converted Jews, who believe in a Jewish figure as a leader...

Thank you! I'm so glad to see this blog report responsibly on this issue!

Christmas trees are a holdover (like Yule logs, etc) from pre-Christian celebrations of the solstice and worship of nature, and are therefore pagan, not Christian. The Christian church has spent hundreds of years grafting its traditions over existing pagan ones; Christmas is just one example. The actual date of Christ's birth probably isn't even close to December 25th...the New Testament, for instance, does not name a birthdate.

In my view, it would be silly to even equate a menorah with a Christmas tree. A menorah is meant to symbolize a burning bush, and is associated with Moses, Mt. Sinai, etc. Its origins are deeply religious. If Sea-Tac had a bunch of nativity scenes set up, or a wall of Virgin Mary candles, OK. But trees? Pagan all the way.

I'm just saying.

A CHRISTmas tree as "secular"? Give me a break. I don’t care what some conservative federal judge claims: that doesn’t pass the horseshit test.

What a loathsome holiday "secular Christmas" is. What terrible messages: Being compassionate one day a year is enough. The rewarded are virtuous. The reason children should behave is to receive gifts. Those fucking Lexus commercials!

What a great use of taxpayer dollars. It's not like we have a war going on. Or a growingly massive debt to foreign creditors. Bring on the ‘holiday’ spirit!

I've refrained from comment on this issue thus far since most of you are doing a good job expressing my sentiments, only better. However, Matthew, your comment (which others are also saying, on other posts) that Christmas trees were originally pagan symbols of solstice, while technically correct, is way off the mark. The swastica has origins long before the Nazis, yet if you tried to display one in a public place with the argument "well, orignally it was a symbol in ancient Egypt; that's what I mean," people would call you out on the bullshitter that you are. Christmas trees are about Christmas.

#11, please don't speak in ignorance, you have the whole internet to learn about even the basics of Hanukkah before you go spouting some bull about the menorah representing a burning bush or the traditions having anything whatsoever to do with Moses.
The menorah is simply a candelabra with 8 candles that represent the 8 days of the miracle of the oil and one shamash candle to light the others, not a "deeply religious" symbol. It's the rituals and prayers surrounding the lighting of the menorah that make it religious, not the candelabra itself.

To make learning easy on you, try watching this video (see how easy I made it, you don't even have to read!)
http://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article.asp?AID=449773

Oh my God! Why is the only intelligent editoral about this story on The Stranger's Slog?

If The Stranger decided to publish a daily, I'd subscribe.

The Times and PI can squabble about their joint agreement all they want, but the truth of the matter is that people don't subscribe to their newspapers because their papers suck. Who wants to spend their money or waste the paper to get such crap, when their desire to get news can be satisified with The Stranger and a internet connection to read articles from good newspapers.

Thanks again to Pat Davis, the same
(Can't Understand Normal Thought) port
commisioner that gave us the WTO:

Who gave the order to remove the trees?
Who had her aged booze pocked face all
over the tube?

The Stranger should profile/expose this worthless pot stirring bitch.

Good write up, Josh. Though I appreciated the point Dan was trying to make earlier in the week about this, I think he went about it the wrong way. Nice to see a well thought out approach here.

As for Xmas trees? I'm an atheist. Washington is the "Evergreen State" and we do have a lot of evergreens. I prefer to think of it as dressing the trees up in Xmas drag and taking them to a fancy dress party. In my household growing up as in today, the trees are seen as a secular symbol, no matter what those pagan tradition-stealing Christians may call them.

Oy. This post seems more like angry venting then a well thought out approach, but its understandable.

Josh, whether or not you choose to see Christmas as Christian is entirely up to you. There are millions of atheists, Jews, and other non-Christians who choose to celebrate it rather than see it as an affront to their philosophical/ethnic/religious identity, even though it has "christ" in the name. (If you bought a new yacht, would you refuse to CHRISTen it?)

Perhaps the rise of Jewsmas (http://www.jewsmas.com/) will prevent future such controversies.

Thanks, Stranger. I used to live near this rabbi, spent many Sabbaths at his house and can vouch for his character. I do think that he made a tactical PR mistake in threatening litigation, but it seems that this dispute has opened the floodgates for every secret Jew-hater to spew his/her vitriol all over the Internet.

And this is happening in the same city that's already seen a fatal shooting at the Jewish Federation by someone who deliberately sought out Jews to kill. Funny how "tolerant" Seattleites suddenly become less tolerant when religion (especially Jews and Judaism) is involved.

Whoa!

To 13:

Just because the word "Christmas" is involved in the term "Christmas tree" doesn't mean it's about the Christian church. "Jingle Bells" is a "Christmas song"; do you consider it to be a sacred hymn? Christmas has become a catch-all term that captures not only the religious aspects of the holiday, but non-religious ones as well. Using the example of a swastika doesn't apply at all. Do you believe that Christmas trees have been appropriated by the church in the same way that swastikas were by the Nazis? I don't. A tree is a tree, and the act of taking one inside one's home, dressing it up and making offerings (in the form of presents and ornaments) to it is incredibly pagan. Or at least consumerist. And yes, it's a Christmas tradition. But it sure ain't Christian. The tree has held onto its original meaning in a very basic way.

To 14:

Thank you for the helpful link and insults! I appreciate them.

I concede that "deeply religious" is an overstatement, and I concede that I am not an expert on Jewish symbology. But I believe you would agree that the menorah's relationship with the Jewish faith, even peripherally, is decidedly more pronounced than a tree is to Christianity. In fact, if you consider paganism the opposite of Christianity, you could say that a tree--especially the worship of that tree--is the exact OPPOSITE of what Christianity typically represents, i.e. subjugation of natural Gods for the Apollonian ideal of one "true" God, etc.

And just so you know I can read, I got the burning bush thing from Wikipedia:

"The menorah (Hebrew: מנורה), is a seven branched candelabrum lit by olive oil in the Tabernacle and the Temple in Jerusalem. The menorah is one of the oldest symbols of the Jewish people. It is said to symbolize the burning bush as seen by Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 25)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah

The only reason that Christmas has become this "catch-all" secular thing is because the the culture is so dominate. It's freakin' everywhere and if you try to fight it or just don't want to participate, you are a horrible Grinch who wants to 'steal Christmas'. Or your boring or needlessly insufferable, etc..

The reason non-Christians often celebrate Christmas is because otherwise they would be social pariahs. No one wants to disappoint friends and family so they just go along with it and try to find the positives as time goes on. (Oh, and they might want in on some of those Christmas cookies, but maybe that's just me.)

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