It has oft been mentioned within sociological circles that the festival of Chanukah appears to have had a revival since the Jews have been confronted by the Christian celebration of Christmas. This has been documented by the famed historian Jenna Joselit. She writes (in REFORM JUDAISM, Winter 2008):
"Well into the 1880s, Chanukah fared poorly in America, a victim of neglect. "The customary candles disappear more and more from Jewish homes," lamented Rabbi Gustav Gottheil in 1884. "Kindle the Chanukah lights anew, modern Israelite!" declared Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler just a few years later. "Make the festival more than ever before radiant with the brightness and beauty of love and charity." Instead, American Jews—well-established and immigrants alike—were adorning their homes with greenery and parlor illuminations and eagerly exchanging gifts in the spirit of Christmas. The purchase of Christmas gifts, commented the Jewish Daily Forward in 1904, "is one of the first things that proves one is no longer a greenhorn."
In the 1920s, Chanukah began to undergo a transformation. Ads in Yiddish newspapers touted Chanukah gifts ranging from waffle irons to automobiles—including the Hudson motorcar trumpeted as "A Chanukah present for the entire family—The Greatest Bargain [metsiah] in the World" (Der Tog, December 1925). Colgate Company ads extolled such "Chanukah Pleasures" as perfumes, shaving emollients, and dental crème. Consumers were encouraged to partake of food products "lekavod Chanukah" (in honor of Chanukah), from Canada Dry ginger ale and Goodman's noodles to Aunt Jemima pancake flour, "the best flour for latkes." And ads for the East River Savings Institution advised depositors to "Save for Chanukah," suggesting that its Jewish customers take advantage of the bank's popular Christmas plan. Editorials accompanying these solicitations encouraged parents, particularly mothers, to add the exchange of presents to the roster of "Chanukah minhagim [customs]." Recounting the heroic exploits of the Maccabees is not enough, counseled the Morgen Zhurnal; to command the attention and affection of Jewish children, the holiday must become an occasion for storytelling, gift-giving, and merrymaking.
By the 1940s, gift-giving had become an integral aspect of Chanukah. "Jewish children should be showered with gifts, Hanukkah gifts, as a perhaps primitive but most effective means of making them immune against envy of the Christian children and their Christmas presents," advised the authors of What Every Jewish Woman Should Know, a guidebook to modern Jewish living. And although children remained the chief beneficiaries of the holiday largesse, grown-ups were not immune to its pleasures. As the Hadassah Newsletter pointed out, "Mah-jong sets make appreciated Chanukah gifts." Judaica manufacturers played up the Chanukah spirit by fashioning a wide array of menorahs in tin, chromium, silver, and sliverplate. By the 1940s, many new Chanukah lamps of modern design were in stores—electrified menorahs, menorahs from the Jewish homeland, "authentic plastic" menorahs, and musical menorahs that played fragments of either "Hatikvah" or "Rock of Ages," which were themselves available in forty-seven different styles. After 1948, kosher chocolate manufacturers capitalized on American Jews' fascination with Israel by also producing a line of nationalistic games. Loft's Chocolates introduced "Valor against Oppression," a spinwheel game featuring such latter-day "Maccabees" as Israeli General Moshe Dayan. Barton's introduced the "Barton's Race Dredel," an Israelized version of Monopoly sporting a map of Israel, miniature Israeli flags, menorahs, and the text: "Every Jewish boy and girl thrills to the heroic story of the Maccabees….We light the candles every night…recite the blessings, sing the songs, play chess, go to parties and dance the hora." Picking up on the party theme, Emily Solis-Cohen's popular Hanukkah: The Feast of Lights offered detailed suggestions of costumes, props, puppet shows, and dances for such characters as "The Top," "The Pancakes," and "The Spirit of Giving." The Jewish ritual guidebook The Jewish Home Beautiful also designated the holiday as a "period for mirth and for spreading of good-will" and championed the merits of a home "bright with candle lights and gay with parties and the exchange of gifts." The consumption of appropriate holiday foods contributed to the merriment. Sharing popularity with latkes (potato pancakes) were "Maccabean sandwiches," composed of either tuna fish or egg salad and shaped to resemble a bite-sized Maccabee warrior; and "Menorah fruit salad," a composition of cream cheese and fruit that, when molded, resembled the ritual object.
By the 1950s, American Jews no longer had to dread the "cruel month" of December. Chanukah's accoutrements had grown to include paper decorations, greeting cards, napkins, wrapping paper, ribbons, and phonograph records. And in the years following World War II, the outside world increasingly freighted Chanukah with the same cultural and social significance as Christmas, yoking the two together in demonstration of America's "cultural oneness." Public school educators in particular convened a "holiday assembly" on a "compromise date" in December in which a Christmas tree and a "Menorah candle" as well as the singing of Chanukah hymns and Christmas carols figured prominently."
She has associated this rise with the Jewish response to Christmas in her book, The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture 1880-1950
Page 241:
"….We magnify it beyond all reason, and establish it as a major holiday in our children's minds." Sociologist Marshall Sklare, studying Jewish life on the "suburban frontier," confirmed Chanukah's latter- day allure. "Hanukkah, in short, becomes for some the Jewish Christmas," he stated categorically. Interesting enough, the outside world in the years following World War Two came increasingly to share that assessment, freighting Chanukah with the same cultural and social significance as Christmas and yoking the two together in demonstration of America's "cultural oneness."
What is interesting to note is that there seems to be an additional significant day on the Jewish calander that appears to have undergone a revival in the past several decades. The Ninth of Av in years past had been a day in which, while the early morning was spent reciting the classical Kinos (elegies), was spent in the office. The average orthodox parent would treat this day of fasting and mourning as they treated the other fast days. A day which was a nuisance, a day of fasting, a day at work with a grumbling stomach. Writing in 1959, Herman Wouk recognized this lack of focus (This is My God, Minor Holy Days):
The Ninth of Av falls in July or August. Urban congregations are decimated. Many have shut down until labor day for want of a quorum of worshippers. For this reason the rite has been until recently at an ebb in American Jewry." With the rise of suburban communities which stay reasonably intact in vacation time, the observance has revived."
Although he attributes the lack of practice due to the summer season, other reasons may be considered. It can be argued that the State of American Jewry was at a point in which they had a general lack of concentration on the Minor Festivals, Purim included. The primary shift to the focus on the Ninth of Av can be the emergence of Holocaust commemoration. As survivors, and Jewry as whole, shook off the silent approach to the tragedy and began to cope with the construction of Museums and other Memorials, the Ninth of Av served as a day of intense memory of Jewish historical suffering.
There has been a time in recent history that the Ninth of Av received national recognition in a historic episode. Prime Minister Menachem Begin was in New York during the summer of 1977 on his first official visit after his election victory. He was being interviewed on the Meet the Press program on Sunday, July 24. At the outset of the interview when asked to comment on his meeting a few days earlier with President Carter, Mr. Begin said on NBC News:
"With your permission, before I answer this very important question, I would like to say a few words about the day we now meet, because of its universal importance. Today, in accordance with our calendar, it is the Ninth of the month of Av. It is the day when 1,907 years ago the Roman Legions, the Fifth and the Twelfth, launched their ultimate onslaught on the Temple Mountain, set this temple ablaze and destroyed Jerusalem, subjugating our people and conquering our land.
Historically, this is the beginning of all the suffering of our people dispersed, humiliated and ultimately now a generation physically destroyed. We remember that day and now have the responsibility to make sure that never again will our independence be destroyed and never again will the Jew become homeless or defenseless. Actually this is the crux of the problems facing us in the future." (adopted from the Begin Center Diary Blog, 2009)
