A Very Jewish Christmas: Christmas in Yiddish Tradition
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Book Talk
In Person:Admission: $10 Zoom Livestream:Admission: Free |
Back in Europe, Yiddish-speaking Jews traditionally let loose on Christmas Eve with feasting, drinking, dancing, and gambling. Scholars have previously assumed this Christmas Eve vacation from Torah study to have been some sort of antagonistic counterculture to Christians celebrating Christmas. But Christmas in Yiddish Tradition reveals that the Christmas traditions transmitted in Yiddish were very similar to those transmitted in other European languages. Drawing on a wealth of documents, Jordan Chad argues that rather than European Jews being antagonistic towards Christmas, their Christmas Eve celebrations were exactly what they looked like: Jews celebrating Christmas. The volume offers the surprising argument that while Jews never celebrated the birth of Jesus, Christmas did not actually become the strictly Christian holiday that it is today until the period when Jews migrated to the New World.
Join YIVO for a very Jewish Christmas celebration featuring a talk by Chad uncovering the story of how Christmas once flourished in a language exclusive to non-Christians—and how modern Jews and Christians ultimately came to forget about the time when they celebrated Christmas in tandem. A kosher Chinese food dinner will follow the presentation.
About the Speaker
Jordan Chad is a multidisciplinary researcher affiliated with the University of Toronto’s Centre for Jewish Studies. His work has been published in journals including Contemporary Jewry and Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies.