A Merry Little Chrismukkah

This year, for the first time since 2005, we have ourselves a merry little Chrismukkah. As St. Nick concludes his gift-giving world tour, Jews around the world light the first candle in their Hanukkah menorahs.

It’s more than a mere calendrical coincidence. Right now it feels as if Jews and Christians alike are in it together, facing a challenge that unites them like never before as well as the possibility of a radically bright and cheerful future.

A few weeks after the attacks of October 7, 2023, I found myself with some friends in Texas. The group, to use an oft-abused term correctly, was diverse—Jews and Catholics and evangelicals, young and old, university professors and professional musicians, with little in common save for our shared belief that faith, family, and nation ought to be the building blocks of a happy, fruitful life.

Maybe it was the spirited conversation, or maybe just the spirits served liberally throughout the evening, but at some point I turned to my friends, raised my glass, and made a toast. “Mazel tov,” I said. “You’re all Jews now.”

The line got a big laugh, but I was being serious.

Growing up in what, until five or six years ago, felt like a very different America, my friends had no way of knowing what life as an embattled minority might feel like. Their beliefs, give or take a few articles of faith, were so ubiquitous in the public discourse that they hardly needed stating: Of course we all love America and believe in its divine election. Of course we all cheer and yearn for warm, tightly knit families offering love and support. Of course we worship a mighty God, divergent as our religious practices and affiliations may be. Sure, here and there a fiery and divisive issue might have popped into view, reminding my friends that some of their neighbors held wildly different convictions, but what they could expect at such contentious moments was a debate, not a crusade, because America was America, and because they, normal Americans, were the majority.

No more.