Kvetching Around the Christmas Tree: His Side

This article was orignially published on Beliefnet in December 2000.

The man with the lifelong obsession with tales of Jewish persecution, who sees anti-Semites embedded into the wallpaper, the "angry Jewish man," is about to decorate a Christmas tree in his own home.

Oy.

A Christmas tree--this monstrous representation of my fear of disappearance into the bland broth of Christian America--will be shedding its pine daggers in my living room for a few weeks in December.

To my girlfriend, Heidi, the tree is not a religious symbol at all but one that connects her to family tradition. I can respect that, understand it, tell myself that it's OK because it's a symbolic compromise for the sake of harmony with the woman I love.

But just because I've decided to accept it does not mean that the tree has suddenly been stripped of all its negative meaning for me. Not yet, anyway.

Growing up in Georgia, where Christianity was practically the state religion, I've always associated Christmas trees with the forced celebrations in my elementary school, which usually left me alienated ("My Daddy told me that Jews killed Christ!"). With Holocaust survivors in my family, I cannot help but associate symbols of Christianity with anti-Semitism.

It's hard to fully explain this to Heidi, who is agnostic and doesn't really have much use for any sort of religion. The only time she dedicates any thought at all to the topic is when she endures my pontifications on Jewish issues. She understandably gets angry when I tell her that where she sees beautiful heirloom ornaments given to her by her beloved grandmother, I see hatred. "Is it the swastika decorations that bother you?" she'll deadpan.

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