Stained glass depictions of the prophets didn't start appearing in synagogues until long after Christians started putting such icons in their churches.

Uh, hold on. Just exactly where does this occur?

It certainly not in any Orthodox, Conservative or Reform shul I've ever been in. And the Secular Humanists don't even believe in God, so....where did you hear about this?

Oh, maybe a "synagogue" that was organized by Jews for Jesus...?

On the other hand, I do wonder, as hannukah gets further and further away from Christmas, how long it'll be before we stop thinking of these two holidays together.

Dean -- we really need to talk, my friend.

...as hannukah gets further and further away from Christmas...?

Please advise.

The stained glass windows at Temple Beth El, the oldest and largest synagogue in the Detroit Metro area, are quite extensive, obviously expensive, and very lovely. They depict various scenes such as Moses descending from the Mount, David in scenes of battle, the burning of the Temple, and quite a few other things.

You might want to visit some time, Ara, especially since just about every other Jewish temple in the area was at some time or another associated with Temple Beth El.

The usher was happy to point them out to us and talk about their origins, and to mention that some other synagogues had stained glass, although not all did.

What on earth would be wrong with such a thing? It's simply stained glass.

Maybe my "ten years" is a bit much. But isn't the Jewish year itself shorter than the solar Gregorian calendar we use most widely in the West? If so, then the month hannukah appears in--Kislev--will slowly become earlier and earlier on the Gregorian calendar.

Or is there some corrective in there somewhere that I'm not aware of, keeping the Jewish calendar in synch somehow with the 365.25 day Gregorian calendar?

Okay, I looked up the indispensable Judaism 101 (which is far more comprehensive than its name implies), and it turns out I'm a dork.

To correct for solar drift, since the 4th century a second month of Adar has been added "in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle. So apparently hannukah will have a tendency to pull away from Christmas & New Year's, and then sort of snap back toward it.

I see that next year it'll occur right through Christmas, even though this year it was practically on top of Thanksgiving.

Note, however, that the Muslim calendar makes no such adjustment. It's based on the Jewish lunar calendar, but without any newfangled 4th century innovations.

So things like Ramadan and Eid will continue to get earlier and earlier on the Gregorian calendar.

Dean:

You, sir, are a scholar and a gentleman. I stand corrected.

Ara

I have always regarded the concept of ecumenicism about as tasteful as, well, a bowl of chili covered with grapefruit juice. Religion, or the lack of it, seems more appropriate as a specific individual or familial approach to the uncertain cosmologies of universal creation, life, death and universal destruction, all of which seem possible as we ponder deep space.

In any case, dried-out fir trees laced with electrical wiring are an invitation to housefires, and early each January, every trash pickup point in every community of America is piled high with discarded small trees lying pathetically in wait for the garbage trucks.

Above all, the relationship between Chanuka and Christmas are solely calendrical and not theological. The former commemmorates a Jewish revolution against the Syrian Greeks, the latter the Roman saturnalia transposed to Christianity. And inasmuch as the deepest remembrance of Chanuka is a rebellion against mixing Judaism with non-Jewish religious practices, traditional Jews regard overlapping that holiday with a Christian celebration as a sort of modern travesty.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

good points, all.

That said, Arnold, remember Herman Wouk was wont to say:

"Had there been no Channukah, there would have been no Christianity."

Ara

P.S. Is there a sadder sight than those forlorn Christmas trees laying at the curb...?

They can view it however they wish; the fact of the matter is that, in the West, the two are associated with each other as "part of the Holiday season."

This seems to be one of those cases where no matter what you do, no one can be made happy and someone will complain. Ignore the Jewish holiday, and you're "excluding" someone. Pay attention to it, and you're "equating" them.

I think the kvetchers should put a sock in it. What the hell ever. From my perspective, it's just a matter of being nice to people. Key-rist. Does it have to go any deeper than that?

On the flip side--few gentiles seem aware that hannukah isn't the most important Jewish holiday by any stretch, and that the really big Jewish holidays occur earlier in the year. Those are the ones I try to remember for my Jewish friends.

Easily, Ara.

1) Have you ever been to Gallup, New Mexico on an early Sunday morning and seen Indians from reservations up to 50-75 miles away, lying in drunken stupor in the cold streets after a Saturday night of heavy-duty liquor consumption? I suppose just about every weekend is Christmas in that town. That is sad.

2) My youngest (high school age) son works on the table cleanup crew at a local countryside restaurant. While waiting to pick him up after work, my wife and I watch customers exiting the premises, waddling through the door almost as if they could benefit from small wheelbarrows to support the loads of their distended bellies, setting themselves up for early heart attacks. That is sad.

3) In the early 1990s, we took a family Amtrak and rental car vacation to, among other places, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which shelter Pamlico and Albemarle sounds -- large enough to float the combined navies of the whole world, Fletcher Pratt once wrote. South of Nag's Head there are communities which solely comprise presumably-expensive vacation homes perched on stilts and awaiting inevitable destruction from seasonal hurricanes, while their owners flee to the mainland on a single causeway, saved from their own stupidity by ubiquitous storm insurance. That, too is sad.

Any life lived without purpose is saddest of all.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Okay, Dean, happy holidays to you, the other contributors and to your family. And speedy recovery from your surgery. No man knows forced inaction who has not been under the knife.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

You've got that right.

Merry Christmas, Arnold!

Ok so ive grown up as an orthodox jew all my life yet i still feel that pull towards the beautiful chirstmas tree ornaments and so whats the problem with a Hannukah bush? Everyone is so opposed to it and even if Hannukah is all about not conforming to society a Hannukah bush isnt going to lead to a new religion? Whats the big deal???