Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Good Letters

Home
Catholic
A Christian Jew and a Jewish Christian

A Christian Jew and a Jewish Christian

Last updated on: December 8, 2015 at 1:00 am by Guest Contributor

A Christian Jew and a Jewish Christian 2015-12-07T12:25:28-07:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Alissa Herbaly Coons

Summer is here in Australia, a string of perfectly forgettable sunny days lulling us along until the sudden arrival of the holidays. Three years since leaving Canada, my husband, Michael, and I are still bewildered by Christmas tunes wavering mirage-like over the sunbaked pavement at the grocery store.

As we drive past the neighbor’s inflatable Santa bloating in the heat, our five-year-old, Ingrid, asks in ecstasy, “Is it almost Hanukkah, too?” and we arrive again at our awkward attempts to inhabit our Judeo-Christian traditions. It’s a perpetual conflict.

The sunshine doesn’t help either.

Among our grandparents we count three Jews and one Anglican (his), three Catholics, and one Lutheran turned Catholic (mine). Among our parents, two Catholics turned Evangelical Protestants (mine), and one nonobservant Jew, one New Age Universalist and one Scotch-Presbyterian atheist ex-stepfather (his).

Together for fourteen years, we’ve lived in five countries and stumbled in and out of at least as many churches. Michael says he’s a Christmas and Easter Jew, kidding/not kidding depending on his audience. He’d rather go to the beach on a Sunday. I miss the liturgy and friendships from my old Lutheran summer camp and keep wandering back to church.

In the absence of the families and communities that formed us, what do we share with each other? What do we give to our daughters?

Hanukkah is the one Jewish holiday that we continue to keep. The menorahs come down from their high shelf in the kitchen. There are five so far, gathered in the early days of our marriage. Michael, having lost three grandparents and his father by age twenty, tried filling part of the void they left by converting to Christianity, marrying me, and attempting to replicate his grandfather’s lost menorah collection. His sense of exile from his origins only seems to deepen as Ingrid reaches the age he was when his parents split up and his grandfather became his best companion.

A few months after we moved to Australia, Ingrid gutted the drawer where Michael keeps his grandfather’s things: a white and silver yarmulke, the prayer shawl bought on a trip to Israel in the late 1980s, a certificate of pilgrimage, and a plastic foil pouch of Burger King ketchup labeled in Hebrew.

Michael has been carrying these with him since he was a teenager. He has not been back to temple since his grandfather’s funeral, partly from grief, partly from ambivalence over his conversion. The tattoo, the bacon, the Jesus—he’s not ready to talk about it. And where would he go? Whom would he tell?

As he gingerly tucked his collection away, he paused to put on the shawl and fingered the knots in the fringe. “I know they mean something,” he said, “but I can’t remember what.”

Twisting the Hanukkah candles into their small holes, I tell the girls the story of the Maccabean revolt and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem. Legend has it that when the Maccabees cleaned out the Temple and reestablished sacrifice, the scant supply of lamp oil miraculously burned bright through eight days of celebration. The book of 1 Maccabees tells the origin of the feast without the miraculous oil, but the return of offerings, incense, light, bread, and music to the briefly restored Temple was reason enough to found the holiday we observe two millennia later.

Michael chips old wax out of the other menorahs and we remember past celebrations:

The Hanukkah before we left our first apartment in Montana, candles flaming in our first menorah, a U-shaped tree with a Star of David at its heart. I scrambled to attempt my first batch of mediocre latkes. The too-wet globs of potato and onion foundered in a pan of insufficiently hot oil.

The year we searched a Christmas-packed mall in Fort Worth and bought the only menorah we could find. A friend turned up early to grate potatoes and squeeze them through a kitchen towel to get the moisture level right for the latkes.

The brass Jerusalem souvenir menorah I bought in a Budapest antique store to nudge Michael after Ingrid was born. It had been a very long time since we celebrated anything. After the drawer incident, I unpacked it for our first Hanukkah here, and showed Ingrid how to wring the water from the potatoes.

I suspect the Maccabees wouldn’t recognize us, our Jesus, our dreidels and latkes. But we persist in recognizing them, and the lingering residue of their tribal faith that has come down to us through the ages: our shared belief in God. Candle by candle, night by night, we go through the motions of renewing our faith.

The eight days of Hanukkah make room for so much to happen. The joy missing one night might emerge another. The knack of spinning a dreidel and reciting Hebrew and believing grow a little more fluent as each day passes. By midweek, the blessings roll off our tongues again, and I encourage our daughters to repeat the Hebrew words, hoping they will feel more fluent in their mouths than they do in mine.

Michael recites, Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam…

With my Protestant impulse to pray in my mother tongue—to make room for us all to understand the utterance of our thanksgiving—I repeat again, Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe…

Tomorrow I will make the last batch of latkes of the holiday. I will look for divine provision in the mix of minced onion and grated potato, the pinch of salt, the spoonful of flour, and the egg. For a few brief minutes I will feel like a good Jewish wife, united with a far-flung and diverse tribe of women standing over pans of hot oil the world over, frying potato pancakes and thinking about Jerusalem.

Then together we will fill our darkened house with light and heat and affirm the possibility of miracles.

Alissa Herbaly Coons holds an MFA from Seattle Pacific University, library cards from three countries, and hands when crossing the street. She blogs about her immigrant experience at startingoverdownunder.wordpress.com.

Previous Post

December 7, 2015

After a Thanksgiving Feast

Next Post

December 9, 2015 Why We Donate: Two 24-Year-Olds on Meaningful Support

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A. G. Harmon Alissa Wilkinson Allison Backous Art Authors Brad Fruhauff Bradford Winters Bryan Bliss Caroline Langston Chad Thomas Johnston Chris Hoke Christiana N. Peterson Culture D.G. Myers D.L. Mayfield Daniel Bowman Jr. David Griffith Elizabeth Duffy Faith Film Greg Wolfe Guest Contributor Interview Jan Vallone Jeffrey Overstreet Jessica Eddings-Roeser Jessica Mesman Griffith Kelly Foster Lindsey Crittenden Morgan Meis music Natalie Vestin Nick Olson Peggy Rosenthal Personal Reflection Poetry Friday Reflection Relationships Review Richard Chess Richard Cole Sara Zarr Shannon Huffman Polson Sonya Bilocerkowycz Tania Runyan Tony Woodlief Topical Categories Uncategorized Vic Sizemore Writing

Select a Month October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 February 2008

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Simon Peter Judas Iscariot James John