I wasn’t interested in the birth of Christ. I just wanted some pretty ornaments…this isn’t really about religion. You’re not really giving our valuable cultural differences that much credit if you believe a couple of twinkling lights can erase a Jewish past.
— Jessica Grose, in response to Mark Oppenheimer in their spirited exchange in Slate on the merits and perils of Jews owning Christmas trees. Grose, in the pro-tree camp, argues that “festooning a fir tree does not negate my deeply felt Jewishness, nor does it dilute the Jewish traditions I still follow.”
Oppenheimer, who is avowedly anti-tree, sees Jewish Christmas tree ownership as succumbing to the “blandishments of mainstream Christian material culture (a culture I happen to adore, but for other people).”
by Nancy Rosenbaum, producer
