Posted by
Doctor Demex on Friday, December 29, 2006 10:00:59 AM
I'm pleased that "Merry Christmas" made a comeback this year. If someone wishes me a happy Ramadan, I always reply "Thank you! And a happy Ramadan to you!" I do this because I don't consider the courteous wish for a joyous season to be a threat of conversion by the sword, as in "Happy Ramadan or else!"
When I wish someone a merry Christmas and it turns out that the person to whom I was trying to be courteous is Jewish, sometimes I might get, "We're Jewish, but thanks anyway and merry Christmas to you!" I usually respond further with "Well, alrighty then! Happy Hanukkah!"
Honestly, sometimes people get upset over the most trivial things. When I greet someone with "How are you?" I really am not trying to poke my nose where it doesn't belong. I'm just trying to exhibit good manners. Like most people, I hope the response to my question is a sincere "Fine, thank you." And I do mean sincere, for I don't wish ill on anyone about whose health I inquire, even for the sake of merely being polite. Still, I don't really want to hear a laundry list of trivial grievances for the next five minutes.
There's a woman in my neighborhood who crosses the street every year to knock on her neighbor's door to remind him that she is Jewish and that the Christmas lights he puts on his house offend her. It's not that the man spells out any offensive message in the lights, like "Peace on Earth" or "Death to Israel," but merely that colored lights around Christmastime remind the woman that she is a member of an ethnic minority that has a right in America to complain about anything and everything as some sort of positive statement about the Holocaust. No matter how sincerely the woman might feel offended, she still has a reputation in the neighborhood for being a nut. Unfortunately, her behavior also promotes negative stereotypes of Jews as being pushy and arrogant. As people who deal with such issues have come to expect, this woman is also not an orthodox Jew, but a liberal reform Jew. It seems strange that the most liberal Jews are the most intolerant of other religions today. Apparently they are under the misapprehension that Hitler was acting in the name of Christianity. As a result, they try to suppress religious references in every venue they can, with stupefying ignorance of the fact that most aggression against Jews has been from secular sources. Not that Christian officeholders haven't persecuted Jews in centuries past, but those days are gone, at least for now. Secular forces caused most global conflict in the 20th century, and Islam has monopolized all the calls for Hebricide so far in the 21st.