Chrismukkah
Chrismukkah is a suitcase word from Christmas and Hanukkah that denotes the synthesis of both festivals by secular Jews. Christmukkah originated in Germany within the middle class Judaism of the 19th century. After World War II , Christmassy became particularly popular in the United States, but is also celebrated in other countries.
Emergence
In the 19th century, Christmas had established itself in Germany as a festival in which, in addition to the spiritual significance, values such as family and charity were in the foreground. Christmas customs such as the Christmas tree , Christmas decorations, gifts or Christmas dinner were perceived more as a German than a Christian tradition. The close proximity of the beginning of Hanukkah on 25th Kislew (end of November / December) to Christmas as well as the adoption of various traditions such as a decorated tree or gifts led to a mixture of traditions that were mockingly referred to as "Christmukkah" at the time. Modern Jewish families in particular adopted elements of the Christmas tradition in the Hanukkah festival. For example, Hanukkah gifts or Hanukkah money became common in the 19th century. Many families from the German-Jewish bourgeoisie celebrated Christmas directly as a purely secular winter festival. The first historically secured Christmas tree in Vienna was erected in 1814 by the Jewish socialite Fanny von Arnstein , who had brought this custom from Berlin. Even Theodor Herzl celebrated Christmas, although he as a convinced Zionist advocated the strengthening of Jewish identity and against assimilation. Common elements of this secular Christmas festival and its influence on the Hanukkah festival among Jews were a Hanukkah tree or Hanukkahush as a counterpart to the Christmas tree, the Hanukkah man , who, as a counterpart to Santa Claus, brought the presents for the children, or the Hanukkah calendar with eight flaps .
After the Holocaust and the associated extinction of Jewish life in Germany, cultural life increasingly shifted to the United States. Here it became common to celebrate both festivals due to marriages between Jews and Christians and the related wish of both partners to maintain their respective festivals and customs. The so-called “December dilemma” arose in Jewish families, namely the desire to add something similar to the great Christian festival of Christmas with its traditions, celebrations and gifts. Gifts for the Hanukkah festival in particular should enhance this festival and contrast Christmas with something of equal value.
Chrismukkah
In 2003, the character Seth Cohen described a festival called Chrismukkah in the American television series OC, California . It was a combined celebration of Hanukkah and Christmas (... eight days of gifts, followed by one day of many, many gifts ...)
“So what's it gonna be huh? Your menorah or your candy cane? Hmm? Christmas or Hanukkah? Ah! Don't worry about it buddy, because in this house, you don't have to choose. Let me introduce you to a little something I'd like to call… Chrismukkah ”
"What would you prefer? Do you want a menorah or a candy cane ? Hmm? Christmas or Hanukkah? Uh ... don't worry, my friend, you don't have to choose in this house. I want to introduce you to something that has the beautiful name ... Chrismukkah. "
Chrismukkah promptly gained widespread popularity in the United States, and the word was included in Time magazine's list of Buzzwords of the Year in 2004 . The series authors almost chose the name Hanimas instead of Chrismukka , as Josh Schwartz reported in an interview on the occasion of the series' 10th birthday.
Reception and criticism
In 1914, the anarchist German poet Erich Mühsam - himself of Jewish origin - took up the temporal proximity of Christmas and Hanukkah in his mocking poem "Holy Night", and limited himself with reference to the Jewish identity of Jesus ("a child from the tribe of Sem “) Ironically from a fusion of both festivals. It is called under the title Holy Night by Erich Mühsam
A child from the tribe of Shem was born in Bethlehem .
And it has been a long time
since it was in the manger,
so people are still very happy to
this day.
Ministers and agrarians,
bourgeois and proletarians -
every Aryan celebrates
the birth of Christ in the cattle shed
at the same time and everywhere
.
(The people to whom it happened
would rather celebrate Chanukah.)
The idea of combining Christmas elements with the Jewish Hanukkah festival has been criticized from many quarters. For example, Ron Wolfson of the American Jewish University wrote that the attempt to exaggerate Hanukkah as an antithesis to Christmas would fail because Christmas, unlike Hanukkah, is one of the two great celebrations of Christianity, while Hanukkah is only a smaller festival in Judaism.
The Jewish Museum Berlin dedicated a temporary exhibition to Christukkah from October 2005 to January 2006. This led to a controversy within the Jewish community in Germany. Stephan J. Kramer , general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany , criticized Christmukkah as "a dangerous tendency towards the historicization and appropriation of Judaism in Germany". The Israeli ambassador Shimon Stein criticized the use of the term Christmukkah. He would rather “stick to the Jewish tradition” and not mix the two festivals. Cilly Kugelmann replied that it was not a question of creating a new term, but that Christmukkah was a phenomenon that emerged in the nineteenth century within German Jewry and must be taken up as a historical phenomenon in a museum.
In circles of pious Jews there is an anti-Christmas movement that celebrates a kind of anti-Christmas, also called Nittel or Nital .
In 2018, the connection on a gay and lesbian basis will be a completely new form: “Pink Hanukkah” at a “Pink Christmas” Christmas market.
literature
- Cilly Kugelmann : Chrismukkah: Stories of Christmas and Hanukkah , Nicolai, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-89479-286-2 (volume accompanying the exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin from October 28, 2005 to January 29, 2006).
- Hanno Loewy : “Should the Hanukkah tree be called”: Hanukkah, Christmas, Christmukkah - Jewish stories from the festival of festivals , Das Arsenal, Berlin 2014 (first edition 2005), ISBN 978-3-931109-60-8 (= books of November 9th , Volume 9).
Web links
- Stefan Förster: "Chrismukkah" - or: Judeo-Christian Christmas ; Contribution to Deutschlandfunk Kultur on December 15, 2009
- Chrismukka on the website of the Jewish Museum Berlin
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Christmas table from the exhibition "And contemplates his Torah day and night" in the Uniseum of Jewish Studies at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg im Breisgau from December 2 to 23, 2010 ( Online PDF 862 KB)
- ↑ a b Chrismukka It's the mix that makes the star online December 24, 2008
- ↑ a b c d Klaus Davidowicz: “ A cultural-historical reminiscence: Hanukkah and Christmas ” on DAVID-Online
- ^ A b Ron Wolfson: " The December Dilemma - Hanukkah's proximity to Christmas has greatly affected the way the holiday is viewed. "On myjewishlearning.com (accessed December 29, 2014)
- ↑ Ulf Meyer December Dilemma What do Christmas and Hanukkah have in common?
- ↑ a b Jaimie Etkin: 'The OC' 10th Anniversary: Creator Josh Schwartz On Mistakes, Mischa Barton's Exit, Chrismukkah & More August 5, 2013 in Huffington Post (accessed December 29, 2014)
- ↑ The best Chrismukkah ever O.C., California season 1, episode 13
- ↑ The Year In Buzzwords Time December 20, 2004 (accessed December 29, 2014)
- ↑ published in Erich Mühsam: Desert - Crater - Clouds. The poems ; Cassirer- Verlag, Berlin 1914 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf Reprint: Guhl, Berlin 1978
- ↑ Quoted from: Erich Mühsam: Desert - Crater - Clouds. The poems. ; Berlin 1914, online on Project Gutenberg : Holy Night
- ↑ Detlef David Kauschke The rest of the party The exhibition “Christmas Day” triggers heated debates in Jüdische Allgemeine January 12, 2006 (accessed December 29, 2014)
- ↑ Ulrich Sahm Happy Nittel! Anti-Christmas: How some pious Jews celebrate the festival in Jüdische Allgemeine December 21, 2006 (accessed December 29, 2014)
- ↑ In Munich on December 3, 2018, “Pink Hanukkah” was celebrated for the first time worldwide. The Jewish Festival of Lights meets a (Christian) Christmas market with a queer focus ”. (Quoted from: “The most dazzling of Munich's Christmas markets: 'Pink Christmas' is back!” (Nachrichten-München article from November 20, 2018)); see also: "Pink Hanukkah" (SZ article, Süddeutsche Zeitung of November 26, 2018, Stadtviertel, p. R 7)