Hoopla Hits Hanukkah

Christians have long complained that the spiritual intent of Christmas is lost amid the hype and shopping frenzy of the season. Many observant Jews worry the commercialism that ate Christmas has swallowed Hanukkah as well.

Blaming savvy marketers, assimilation, synagogue boutiques and the rise of interfaith marriages, many Jews bemoan the rise of storefronts stuffed with Hanukkah tchotchkes. Even worse, they say, are “crossover” items such as stockings emblazoned with the star of David to hang on the chimney.

“A Jewish stocking is nonsense,” said Rabbi Susan Laemmle, dean of religious life at USC. “It’s garbage. Even interfaith families should keep it separate.”

The irony of the “Christmas-ization” of Hanukkah is stark since it’s a holiday that sprang from Jewish resistance to a dominant culture. Beginning at sundown today and running for eight days, the celebration marks the rededication of the ancient Jerusalem Temple after traditionalist Jews--called the Maccabees--defeated the Syrian Greeks in 165 B.C.

Increasingly, synagogues are urging restraint in celebrating Hanukkah--regarded as a minor holiday and downplayed for centuries by religious scholars. Although rabbis have varying opinions, many want congregants to scale it back to simple traditional rituals, much like churches struggle to put Christ back into Christmas.

It’s an uphill battle. Catalogs carry dreidels that look like golf balls and Mickey Mouse menorahs. Jewish kids can visit a “Dreidel House,” not unlike Santa houses in shopping malls. Tinsel comes in blue and silver and T-shirts say “Come on Baby, Light my Menorah.”

But “one of the major functions of religion is to bring meaning into people’s lives by developing relationships both with God and people around us,” said Rabbi Paul Menitoff, executive vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in New York City. “That meaning can’t be found in materialism.”

Hanukkah has limited religious significance. Synagogue schools, for example, remain in session and observant Jews are not required to restrict their activities as they do on the Sabbath or holidays such as Passover.

Gift-giving isn’t part of Hanukkah’s traditional rituals, although children often receive Hanukkah money, called gelt. Other traditions include spinning the four-sided tops called dreidels, serving potato latkes and lighting the menorah, a candelabrum that represents the number of days a single vial of olive oil lasted to light the sacred lamp in the ancient temple.

But to a kid, noshing on the pancake-like latkes--however delicious--is not the same experience as unwrapping a Furby under a Christmas tree.

Many American Jews end up inflating the importance of Hanukkah because they don’t want their kids to feel left out as Christmas cheer blares out of every crevice of American culture during December.

“At this time of year, Jewish children are bombarded by Christmas,” said Rabbi Zalman Marcus of the Chabad Jewish Center in Mission Viejo.

One common response by Jewish families is the giving of presents during Hanukkah.

“It’s relatively harmless,” said Rabbi Mark S. Miller of Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach, who unabashedly gives gifts to his own five children during the holiday. “The tinsel and whatever else . . . doesn’t mask or hide the essence of the festival.”

Acknowledging the lure of shopping mall setups in which kids sit on Santa’s lap and unfurl gift lists, a New York-based Chabad children’s organization started the “Dreidel House,” a hut built by community volunteers where kids meet a costumed Judah Maccabee, who tells the tale of Hanukkah.

Now popular nationwide, the Dreidel Houses are solely educational, according to Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, West Coast director of Chabad.

“This is for the children, so they can feel proud of their own holiday,” said Marcus of the Mission Viejo center, which also has a Dreidel House this year. But grubbing for gifts in the Dreidel House simply isn’t kosher. “And they don’t sit on Judah’s lap,” he said. “We don’t take it that far.”

Another part of the trend is the growing market for Hanukkah paraphernalia.

The giant retailer Target has found the holiday is profitable, said Carolyn Brookter, a spokeswoman for the Minneapolis-based chain. After discovering the Jewish market when it expanded into the New York City area, the retailer now offers Hanukkah items in 700 of its 851 stores.

Sales of Hanukkah cards have also mushroomed. Sales in North America of Hanukkah cards will bring in an estimated $11 million this year, said Hallmark spokeswoman Michelle Buckley. Hallmark alone now offers more than 100 different Hanukkah cards.

Menorahs Made From Mah Jongg Tiles

The popularity of Hanukkah products has pushed Shahrokh Ghodsi, owner of a Jewish specialty store called the Golden Dreidle in Costa Mesa, into stocking more and more paraphernalia to compete with the mainstream megastores.

“Hanukkah is the biggest time of the year for my store,” said Ghodsi, who has noticed a surge in Jewish and especially non-Jewish companies merchandising Hanukkah items. “They realize there’s a huge market for it.”

Many strictly Jewish retailers say they want to protect the sanctity of the holiday and won’t carry items that they feel stray from tradition.

One catalog, “The Source for Everything Jewish,” carries such items as “Draping Dreidels Hanukkah Lights” and menorahs made from Mah Jongg tiles. But “we wouldn’t ever carry crossover items like the Hanukkah bush,” said Ronna Weinstock, a company marketing official. “We’re in the business to buy and sell, but we do have our standards.”

Indeed, the most strident objections are to mongrel trinkets--such as greeting cards depicting a red-nosed reindeer lighting a menorah and Jewish Christmas stockings--that target the large interfaith market in a way rabbis find troubling.

“You can’t just take a Christmas tradition and color it blue and white to make it Jewish,” said Rabbi Stephen J. Einstein of the Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Fountain Valley. “If you have a stocking on the fireplace and trees in the living room, that’s not Hanukkah.”

Some consumers also draw the line at Hanukkah hybrids.

“My parents started to do a Hanukkah bush for me when I was a kid because they didn’t want me to feel left out,” said Lara Hunter of Lake Forest, whose family found a small pine tree and decorated it with blue and white tinsel and stuck a six-pointed Star of David on the top.

“I won’t do that for my son because I don’t want him to associate Christmas with Hanukkah,” said Hunter, 27, who vows to keep Hanukkah separate from Christmas for her 21-month-old son, Evan.

Synagogues Benefit by Selling Paraphernalia

Opposition to Hanukkah hoopla dates back to about 200 A.D., when rabbinical scholars drafted the Mishna, a part of the Talmud, said Rabbi Johanna Hershenson of Temple Beth El in Aliso Viejo. Those scholars left out of that account any mention of the Maccabees, a dynasty that became--in their view--unacceptably secular after defeating the Syrians.

The result was a tendency to downplay Hanukkah.

But the Maccabee story had lasting popular appeal. “The problem was that the people were elated by winning the war and very proud of it,” said Hershenson. “The people continued to celebrate the victory of the Maccabees because it meant everything to them. It was their freedom.”

The commercial push to mainstream Hanukkah in America dates to the beginning of the century, when Aunt Jemima pancake batter was advertised as “great for latkes,” according to “The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture” by Jewish historian Jenna Weissman Joselit.

Stores aren’t the only profit centers during Hanukkah. Many synagogues have found a way to make money with Hanukkah boutiques at which they sell holiday paraphernalia to keep fund-raising going after the end of lucrative ticket sales for high holiday services of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana.

Beyond simply practical concerns, some American Jews see the story of Hanukkah--the perseverance of a minority--as a metaphor for Judaism. They don’t want a holiday predicated on religious freedom de-emphasized in an increasingly multicultural society.

“Jews in the United States today face the question of how to maintain their Jewish identity and integrity while living within this general culture,” said Menitoff. “Jews face this, as does every minority culture in America.”

Minority cultures always must struggle to keep their rituals pure, said Earl Babbie, sociology professor at Chapman University in Orange.

“A minority culture tends to become more and more like the mainstream . . . losing its original identity in the process,” he said.

Jews aren’t the only non-Christians in America overwhelmed by Christmas. Fifteen years ago, the Hindu community launched a winter celebration to help their kids feel less left out of the festivities. Called Pancha Ganapati, it’s five days of gift-giving that coincide with Christmas and celebrate Ganesha, the elephant-headed Lord of Creativity, according to Hinduism Today magazine.

Within the American Jewish population, it’s the ultra-Orthodox and the Orthodox Jews who are most resistant to the pressure to commercialize Hanukkah, say experts.

“If the gist of Hanukkah becomes simply the exchange of presents, then it has become the equivalent of Christmas,” said Rabbi Joel Landau of the Beth Jacob Congregation in Irvine, an Orthodox congregation.

For all the fuss, however, some rabbis are unruffled by Hanukkah’s higher profile. They argue that even with diluted rituals, a commercial Hanukkah is better than none at all.

“Even though Hanukkah is a minor holiday, I advocate that people go all-out in celebrating,” said Rabbi Itzhak Newman, dean of the Hebrew Academy at Huntington Beach, who doesn’t mind gift-giving as long as some of the unique rituals of Hanukkah are observed.

And trying to ignore Christmas is an exercise in futility, said Rabbi Arnold Rachlis of the University Synagogue in Irvine. Instead of asking his congregants to refrain from gifts, he’s asking them to donate some of their presents to charity.

But resisting assimilation--one of the lessons of Hanukkah--is still important to a religious community that makes up only 3% of the American population, he said.

“Acculturation is when you absorb the best of the outside society and blend it into who we are,” he said. “Assimilation is when you disappear.”