Barry Farber’s Views on Christmas

     In my previous post I excerpted an excellent editorial by Ben Stein, a Jewish man, about Christmas.  He likes it.  Would you believe that there is another Jewish person who likes Christmas?

In 1968 the New York Times published an op-ed piece I wrote recalling the feelings of a Jewish boy in North Carolina loving absolutely everything about the full-dress, throttle-out celebration of – not “holidays,” not the “winter festival,” not any “season” that called for “greetings,” but Christmas. Do you hear me? CHRISTMAS! And I mean Christmas in the public schools.

The point of the piece was how much I loved the music and the trees and the ornaments and the shepherds and the wise men and the candy canes and how that annual long-awaited Yule immersion neither “humiliated” me nor “isolated” me nor deflected me one spiritual inch from my own beautiful Jewish religion.

–Barry Farber, “Jews for Christmas!”

     Mr. Farber, unlike a lot of agnostics and atheists out there, sees that there is an attack on Christmas in America.

The assault on Christmas did not start with shock-and-awe. It began with a kind of quiet courtesy. Christians themselves began to consider the sensitivities of non-Christian children. (Where was I when those “sensitivities” were handed out?) “Happy Holidays” and the like became a way for Christians to say, “We don’t wish to impose our Christmas upon others.”

Like much that starts out politely, it turned into a society-splitting brawl. Protests against a nativity scene on the lawn of City Hall morphed into the obliteration of the Christmas Pageant at the public school, which led to the tilting askew of any two sticks or bars that might otherwise be viewed as a cross, the outlawing of the colors red and green together, and finally – even as the “F” word gained warmer and warmer welcome in our media – the designation of “Merry Christmas” as the new profanity.

     I really appreciate his attitude:

Welcome back, all you Christmas lovers of all religions! I was on that front line 40 years ago begging organizations and individuals who were trying to stifle Christmas in the public schools to cut it out! “Who are they hurting?” I’d shout. “There are a lot of Christians around. They like to celebrate Christmas. They’re not forcing US to take part! Lay off! Leave them be! What’s the big deal?”