It's delightful, it's delicious, it's dlevy!
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Growing up in America, we might feel like we know everything there is to know about Christmas. I mean, it’s everywhere, from television specials to muzak to more tinsel than you can shake a candy cane at. But the superficial trappings of the holiday, however fun they might be, belie a complex collection of rituals and beliefs as you might expect from a major world religion’s big holy day.
Last year, as we planned our winter content for JewishBoston.com, we got to talking about our feelings at being invited to celebrate Christmas at the homes of our friends and relatives. Whatever emotional baggage we might bring to the experience — and let’s not pretend we don’t all grow up with some kind of feeling about Christmas, whether it’s jealousy, marginalization, or simply joy at the world feeling festive — very few of us who grew up without Christian parents or grandparents really knew the first thing about what to expect. So we asked our friends, colleagues, and even a few experts to share their knowledge. Here are some highlights of what we learned…
Hey look, I’m on a book cover! (And an essay I wrote is in the book, along with essays by a bunch of friends, colleagues, and strangers who are nonetheless quite interesting.) It’s an academic publisher, hence the price, but maybe some of my Jewish studies (and/or American/Cultural Studies) professor friends (and librarian friends!) will add it to their syllabi and collections.
As I mentioned earlier this week, I was invited to give the sermon this Shabbat at Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, MA for their Pride Shabbat. If you’d like to read what I had to say, it’s behind the cut.
I saw Falsettos on my second-ever trip to Broadway, the summer before I started high school. I don’t know that there’s ever been another show — or ever will be — that spoke so directly to me.
I had just returned from a six-and-a-half-week cross-country summer trip with USY on Wheels, a Jewish summer program that combined seeing the country with learning about religious Jewish living. For the first time in my life, I was starting to really grapple with what being Jewish meant to me. I was also 14, with all that entails.
Something about seeing Will Finn work out his own sexuality in such a Jewish milieu helped something click in my brain. Although I still had a lot of coming out to do, I more or less knew where I stood with regards to my sexuality. But I could work out my Judaism in a homosexual milieu. And, well, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last twenty years.
This coming Saturday I’m going to be the guest speaker at Pride Shabbat at Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, MA. If you’re local, come hear me tell this story and more as I talk about “what’s Jewish about gay pride.”
Join Keshet’s Equality Guide
Keshet is assembling a directory to provide a way for LGBTQ Jews and their loved ones to find welcoming institutions and spiritual leaders. The survey is very short and consists of a series of yes/no questions. If you are a member of the clergy or the leader of a Jewish organization, please complete the survey to add yourself to the directory.
One of my favorite ways to celebrate a holiday is with the release of a concept album. Unfortunately, 2006’s Plague Songs doesn’t quite do it for me. And yet, there’s something to be said for Imogen Heap’s “Glittering Cloud,” her take on the plague of locusts.
From ASK A RABBI: Every year one of my cousins tries to derail the seder by insisting that the story of the Exodus never happened so we shouldn’t talk about it like history. How can I turn this into a productive discussion at the seder?
(Answered by Rabbi Carl Perkins of Temple Aliyah, Needham, MA… and his answer might surprise you…)
