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CEO Op-ed in the Algemeiner: The Dangerous Board Game in Vienna

3/21/2022

 
In the popular board game Monopoly, a player gets one chance to pass “Go,” and in the process, collect $200. In Vienna, where negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program have been underway for the past year, life seems to be imitating art — but the consequences are far beyond what one might win or lose on any game board.

The player that stands to win the most in this game is Iran. The deal entered into in 2015 by the P5+1 (the United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia, plus Germany), known as the JCPOA, is now generally acknowledged to have been a “bad deal.” (Some are now using the words “dangerous” or “horrible,” but we get the point.) Bad, because it leaves out aspects of Iran’s nuclear program like ballistic missile and centrifuge development, snap inspections of nuclear sites, and the manufacture of uranium metal. It contains sunset clauses that would allow Iran, in relatively short order, to go back into the nuclear weapons business.

Given the transparent flaws in the JCPOA, the Trump administration left the deal in 2018. Additional sanctions were imposed on Tehran, inflicting severe economic stress on the regime. Despite this, it has ratcheted up its uranium enrichment, tested missiles and developed newer and more efficient centrifuges. Iran’s intentions are clear: it seeks to develop weapons, by hook or by crook.

But it is not just Iran’s nuclear program that has raised deep concern. Its hegemonic objectives in the Middle East are advanced in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen by no less than six proxy armies that it funds, trains and arms — including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen. It is seeking to build and deploy a blue-water navy. It has fired rockets at American bases and at its Gulf neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Only days ago, it took credit for firing — from Iranian territory — rockets into Erbil, Iraq, which landed in the vicinity of the American consulate there, claiming it was an attack on an “Israeli facility.” The regime does so with impunity, sticking fingers not only in the eyes of its enemies and its rivals, but at the United States itself, with which it sits at the table in Vienna.

​
All the while, Iran’s genocidal calls for the elimination of Israel continue unabated. On a daily basis, Iranian leaders at the highest level continue their call to excise “the Zionist cancer” from the region.

In sum, the JCPOA was merely a veil with a timer attached. That clock, if a new agreement comes out of the Vienna talks, will soon be ticking again. It will wind down in two or three years, leaving Iran not only with a clear field in which to develop its nuclear weapons program, but with its pockets full of tens of billions of dollars, freed up by the sanctions it is demanding be removed from it. That cash can further fund a nuclear weapons program, terrorism carried out on an international scale by its proxies, and other malign behavior in the Middle East and beyond.

Leaks and rumors over the past few weeks have been focused on some disturbing, potential new elements in a revised JCPOA deal. Specifically, Tehran is said to have demanded that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the spearhead of its campaigns of terror and military activity, be removed from various terrorism lists.

Just as disturbing is another alleged demand: that sanctions be lifted from Mohsen Rezaei, who is currently Iran’s vice president for Economic Affairs, and Ali Akbar Velayati, the former Iranian foreign minister, for their central roles in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish social welfare building in Buenos Aires, which resulted in the death of 85 people and the injuring of hundreds of others. Interpol has issued “Red Notices” for Rezaei; the notices are circulated internationally and “seek the location and arrest of a person wanted by a legal jurisdiction or an international tribunal with a view to his/her extradition.”

Such concessions to those who not only traffic in international terror, but direct it, would send an unmistakable signal that expediency counts far more than values, resolve, or more important, common sense. To return for a moment to the Monopoly board game, it is a “get out of jail” pass for a regime that for four decades, has made a career of state-sponsored terrorism and the promotion of mayhem and instability far beyond its own neighborhood.

Why would any country simply look the other way and reward Iran — for what?

The arguments for a renewed JCPOA are based on the belief that a bad deal is better than no deal, and that what might come out of Vienna will at least keep the lid on Iran’s nuclear weapons activity for a time; in other words, the diplomatic means of kicking a dangerous can down the road.

Hindsight is sometimes not 20/20. Many said, in 2015, that negotiations with Iran should have covered three baskets of Iranian malign behavior: the nuclear program, support for terrorism, and human rights (Iran being of the world’s worst abusers of followers of the Bahai religion, women, LGBTQI people, juvenile offenders and others).

The Vienna talks are another opportunity to circumvent the JCPOA itself, which is limited to nuclear-only issues, and confront the Iranians on the entire charge sheet brought about by their across-the-board rogue behavior.
But, as in 2015, that ship seems to have sailed.

Instead, we are now faced, on all three issues, with an impudent Iran seemingly calling most of the shots at the negotiating table, and getting rewarded for its destructive behavior to boot. Expediency seems to be the operative guidepost in the Vienna talks, rather than sending a watertight message to Tehran that its rogue modus operandi must cease, full stop.

Competitive as they may be, board games usually end with a good time had by all. The game going on in Vienna — based on what we know now by leaving open the door to Iran’s destructive designs — will surely not end that way.

Read Mariaschin's expert analysis in the Algemeiner.

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Daniel S. Mariaschin is CEO of B'nai B'rith International.

CEO Op-ed in Algemeiner: Holocaust Remembrance: Responsibilities for All Society

2/2/2022

 
When I began my career nearly 50 years ago, Holocaust remembrance events were few and far between. One of my first assignments out of graduate school, working in the Boston Jewish community, was to organize an annual remembrance event, held on the campus of Brandeis University, where a sculpture of Job by renowned sculptor Nathan Rapoport stands outside the Jewish chapel.

The attendees at those events were largely survivors and their families. One, whom I recall quite well, was a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, whose face was etched with sorrow in a way that told me almost everything I needed to know about the ordeal he endured. The Holocaust survivor with whom I worked to arrange that program just passed away some months ago, at the age of 96.

Last year, it is estimated that some 15,000 survivors passed away. Even child survivors are approaching 80 or are even older. One of the major challenges to remembrance is the reality that witnesses to, and victims of, Nazi barbarity will, at some point, not be here to testify to the worst crimes known to humankind.

Now that we’ve just come through the annual observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day — January 27, the date in 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated — this may be a good time to take stock of how we go about the immense task of remembering.

​For the commemoration this year, B’nai B’rith hosted a program reflecting the international scope of the challenge before us. New German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and US Secretary for Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas — himself the son of a Holocaust refugee — were keynote speakers, and were joined by a host of experts on Holocaust remembrance and the battle against Jew-hatred, including Fernando Lottenberg, the newly-appointed Commissioner for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism at the Organization of American States.

As the program unfolded, I thought back to the small gathering of survivors on the Brandeis University campus decades ago, and what it is we need to do to ensure that remembrance does not fall victim to insufficient attention, distortion, or denial.

We are fighting the passage of time, as well as the passing of survivors. But it is not only that.

We are seeing the uneven results of Holocaust education — some states and local school boards require courses, but many do not. Modern definitions of the word “genocide” are often applied to situations and events that do not meet the intent of the man who coined the word — Rafael Lemkin — and this has lessened the uniqueness of the Holocaust. We’ve seen a proliferation of Holocaust denial and minimization from the far-right, the far-left, Islamists, the Palestinian leadership and its media and allies, and Iran. Now we are also seeing trivialization of the Holocaust by militant anti-vaccination activists. There are a growing number of examples of the latter — Robert Kennedy, Jr., being only the latest, when he suggested that, at least during the Holocaust, victims could escape over the Swiss Alps or hide in attics, like Anne Frank. Talk about the need for Holocaust education.

Further aggravating all of this is the internet and social media — which provide platforms for negationists and conspiracists — trumpeting all manner of Holocaust denial theories. What used to be shared in books sent in plain brown wrappers or in occasional newsletters by antisemites to antisemites, is now out there for all to see, in real time on your tablet, phone, or watch.

The dangerous spike in global antisemitism has added a multiplier effect to the toxic environment in which hatred thrives. So, how do we best combat a virus that has become, for us, a challenge of pandemic proportions?

Fortunately, we have a growing number of allies in this fight. Government representatives and agencies connected to the European Union are working closely with Jewish organizations to place Holocaust remembrance, denial, and trivialization high on the agenda. Many who have joined in these efforts see this within a framework of safeguarding democracy. Katharina Von Schnurbein, the European Commission Coordinator on Combating Anti-Semitism and Fostering Jewish Life, and a veteran of these discussions, says that political will and leadership are essential to rolling back the tide of hatred.

Legislation criminalizing Holocaust denial exists in some countries, but often needs the back-up of better training, resources, and proactive jurisprudence to bring the deniers to account. Most of the big social media platforms, a few of which profess to understand our concerns, have still been slow in actually addressing the proliferation of websites, messages, comments, and blogs that traffic in distortion and denial.

The importance of Holocaust education is essential. Recent surveys show that Millennials and members of Gen Z have little knowledge of what transpired in Europe between 1933 and 1945. Most think the number of Jewish victims was much lower, and have never heard of concentration camps, or can’t name one; some even believe that it was the Jews themselves who brought on the Holocaust. New approaches, technologies, and methodologies need to be employed to address this knowledge deficit before it is too late.

Addressing the current generation, Kathrin Meyer, the Secretary General of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), says messaging should include the idea that “it is cool to fight antisemitism; it is cool to fight distortion.” A joint campaign in the online space by four organizations, called “Protect the Facts,” — IHRA, the European Commission, the United Nations, and UNESCO — is aimed at raising awareness; more international organizations and NGOs should emulate this important new project.

And within that context, where Europe has seen widespread antisemitism, marked by disgraceful Holocaust references amongst soccer fans, it is gratifying to know that major clubs like Borussia Dortmund in Germany, and Chelsea, in the United Kingdom are proactively engaged in fighting this proliferation of Jew hatred. To make this a truly European effort, additional clubs should launch similar initiatives.

Holocaust denial as a political tool has its proponents, as well. Just a couple of weeks ago, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for an Israeli-introduced, and German co-sponsored, resolution on distortion and Holocaust denial. Iran was the only country to speak against the measure. Said its foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, “the fake Zionist regime has constantly tried to use the victims of World War II and the Jews as a justification for its shameless and aggressive actions.” This, from a country that has sponsored, among other activity, cartoon contests that mock the memory of the Holocaust, and whose leaders make genocidal calls for Israel’s elimination on a daily basis.

Lessons learned? We need to redouble our efforts at cooperation, and bringing governments, intergovernmental bodies, the education community, and civil society closer together if we are to fully teach future generations about what befell the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis, and what lessons there are to be learned from it.

As the IHRA’s Kathrin Meyer perceptively said, “We must outnumber the haters.”

Read Mariaschin's op-ed in the Algemeiner.

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Daniel S. Mariaschin is CEO of B'nai B'rith International.

CEO Op-ed in JNS: Amnesty’s anti-Israel report pours more fuel onto delegitimization bonfire

2/1/2022

 
(February 1, 2022 / JNS) A 211-page report issued by Amnesty International in the United Kingdom is pouring a deeper foundation on top of an already dangerous and insidious path to delegitimize Israel. The report charges Israel “with oppression and domination of Palestinians, through cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion,” in what it further describes as crimes against humanity.

Disturbingly, this report joins a malicious piling on against the world’s only Jewish state.

​Last April, the organization Human Rights Watch issued a 213-page report charging Israel with inflicting on the Palestinians “deprivations so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

The apartheid charge has been a staple of the BDS movement for years. Human Rights Watch has long been in the forefront of those seeking to undermine Israel’s legitimacy, aided by its cachet among those who are like-minded or who look past its selective use of the term “human rights.”

Then, in May of last year, the U.N. Human Rights Council—long a hotbed of bias against Israel—established a Commission of Inquiry (COI) “to investigate violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in East Jerusalem and in Israel.” For decades, the annually funded, so-called “Palestinian committees” in the United Nations, and the dozens of anti-Israel resolutions adopted each year in the General Assembly and in its various agencies, focused largely on the West Bank and Gaza.

​What separates this COI from all that preceded it inside the world body is its investigation into practices in Israel proper—and its open-ended mandate. In other words, a permanent star chamber has been set in place to flog Israel at will now and on into the future. Indeed, the three members of the commission—led by its chair, Navi Pillay, a former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights—are known for their incessant, blind bias against the Jewish state. Based on the pronouncements and writing of its members, the fix is in: Don’t expect the COI, which is expected to issue its first report in June, to deliver anything other than a lengthy, one-sided rant, which will only further demonize and incite against Israel.

Amnesty UK also includes Israel proper in its report and says that an Israeli system of “legal segregation” treats Palestinians as an “inferior racial group.” The report also freely uses the “apartheid” charge throughout against Israel.

The group’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, calls Israeli policies “prolonged oppression of millions of people.” For decades now, Amnesty International, running on the same fuel as Human Rights Watch, has had a Jewish problem. The two organizations are two sides of the same coin with frequent, obsessive criticism of Israel becoming a staple of press releases and annual reports.

The Amnesty UK report, though, telegraphs its objectives in several places. It calls for a “right of return” of Palestinian refugees, a transparent, demographic prescription for the demise of Israel as a Jewish state. It charges Israel with pursuing, since 1948, “a policy of establishing and then maintaining control over land and resources to benefit Jewish Israelis.” It further charges Israel with “Judaizing” not only areas of the West Bank, but in Israel itself. And it calls on the U.N. Security Council “to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel,” covering “all weapons and munitions as well as law-enforcement equipment.” Additionally, it recommends that the Security Council impose “targeted sanctions, such as asset freezes, against Israel officials … .”

The report also calls on the International Criminal Court, which already has charges of crimes against humanity against Israel on its docket, to consider “the crime of apartheid in its current investigation into the occupied Palestinian territories” and even calls for the application of the concept of universal jurisdiction to bring those “perpetrators (Israelis) of apartheid crimes to justice.”

The upshot of the report? A call for a “major reassessment” of the UK’s policy position on Israel. The government of Boris Johnson has generally enjoyed good bilateral relations with Israel. Amnesty calls for a change in that relationship in order “to confront and begin to tackle the scale and systematic nature of Israel’s apartheid crimes.”

Tucked somewhere deep in the report is a bogus throw-away line about Amnesty recognizing Israel’s “desire to be a home for Jews,” suggesting that Israel has no right to an independent existence. Someone in the organization’s office in London must have cynically suggested, after placing Israel on the rack, tossing in a few words to cover charges of not being “even-handed.”

One will never see in these lengthy screeds anything at all about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East. About its widely respected independent judiciary, about the fact that Israeli Arabs now sit in the current government coalition—that an Israeli Arab sits on Israel’s Supreme Court, that thousands of Israeli Arab students attend Israeli universities or that Arabic is an official language of Israel. The sponsors and writers of these reports—or should we say indictments—have no interest whatsoever in seeing beyond their interest in soiling Israel in the court of public opinion.

The similarity of language in the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty UK reports, and the stated goals of the COI are not coincidental. It’s the vernacular of the BDS campaign, of the strident accusers of Israel within the United Nations and its agencies, of the Palestinian leadership itself, of some leading media outlets, and now, disturbingly, by some members of the U.S. Congress and other global parliamentary bodies.

The length of this report is matched only by the vehemence of its hatred towards Israel, and by extension, those who support it. It will resonate among those who share its warped view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who disregard the series of wars since 1948 to destroy Israel, the Palestinian terrorists whose families are rewarded with lifelong stipends, the showers of Hamas rockets from Gaza on Israeli cities and the nihilistic zero-sum policies of the Palestinian Authority.

Amnesty UK’s report is nothing more than another bald-faced attempt to exile, demean, marginalize and, yes, to ultimately eliminate the world’s only sovereign Jewish state. It is addressed to the government of the United Kingdom, but it is clearly meant for international consumption. It deserves to be thoroughly discredited as the work of utterly prejudiced operatives. No person who seriously cares about seeing a Middle East at peace ought to read beyond page one.

Read Mariaschin's expert analysis in JNS.

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Daniel S. Mariaschin is CEO of B'nai B'rith International.

CEO Op-Ed in the Algemeiner: A View From Here: The Ongoing Predicament of French Antisemitism

12/29/2021

 
From this side of the ocean, attempting to analyze contemporary French antisemitism sometimes feels like a roller coaster ride.

The history of French Jewry, which has its origins in Roman times, is one of repeated ups and downs, exile and return, official discrimination and emancipation, searing antisemitism, accomplishment in many fields (especially, but not only, in politics, commerce, and culture), persecution and deportation, communal re-birth, and over the past 20 years or so, a compendium of violent acts committed against French Jews, against the backdrop of hatred from the far-left, the far-right, and, increasingly, from Islamists.

To demonstrate how much French antisemitism has shaped our view of Jew hatred over all of Europe, most conversations about the subject begin with offering examples of a never-ending string of violent acts against French Jews.

The list is lengthening, but most will recall these amongst the worst: the 2006 beating, torture, and killing of 26-year-old Ilan Halimi by assailants who held him for ransom; the killing of an adult and three children by an Islamist gunman in Toulouse in 2012; the 2015 killing of four and hostage taking at the Hypercacher market; the 2017 defenestration killing of 65-year-old Sarah Halimi by an antisemitic neighbor; the 2018 killing of 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll in her Paris apartment; and, just a few weeks ago, a 70-year-old Jew was beaten by intruders, demanding to know whether he was “a jeweler and a Jew” and where he was hiding “the gold.”

​Indeed, it was from the French Jewish experience that we first heard warnings about wearing kipot or Magen David necklaces in public. Those admonitions have now spread worldwide.

That the story of French Jewry is one of contradictions makes the current explosion of incidents that much more difficult to absorb. Paris is one of the great centers of diaspora Jewry, with over 40 synagogues and a highly organized communal structure, including dozens of Jewish schools and community centers, numerous organizations (including my own), radio programs, and — some say — more kosher restaurants than New York City. Jews hold high positions in government and academia. In a country that places high value on intellectualism, France counts many Jews who figure prominently in national discussions and debates about politics, the economy, and values.

But there is a dark side that runs up against all the pluses. As we are now seeing right here in the United States, Jews in France are caught in a vise of vitriol and violence from the political extremes, and from a growing Islamist threat that finds its origins in many neighborhoods where Jews once, and still, live.

The new antisemitism has, some say, replaced that which existed in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Dreyfus Affair, in which a Jewish officer was convicted on trumped-up charges of espionage; a deep vein of extreme nationalism; and a proliferation of antisemitic newspapers and books only set the stage for the murderous period of the Nazi invasion and occupation, and the establishment of the collaborationist Vichy government. Of the 76,000 French Jews — 25% of the community —  sent to the death camps, less than 500 returned.

Antisemitism in high places has affected French Jewry as well. The story of the thousands of French Jewish soldiers who fought valiantly in World War I and the community’s steadfast patriotism is well known. Yet, in 1980, after a terrorist attack on Simchat Torah at the synagogue on Rue Copernic in Paris — carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — killed four and injured 40, then Prime Minister Raymond Barre commented that “a despicable attack sought to target Jews who were in this synagogue and that struck innocent Frenchmen who were crossing Rue Copernic.”

That remark set off a global firestorm of criticism of Barre for suggesting that the intended victims — the Jews in the synagogue — unlike the passersby, were, indeed, not Frenchmen at all.

Some Vichy collaborators, who managed to get rehabilitated after World War II, had their protectors and defenders. Maurice Papon, who was the secretary general of police in Vichy-controlled Bordeaux, was initially charged in 1983 for the deportation of 1,690 Jews to the death camps. Papon, who after the war had entered politics and served in the French cabinet under Barre, was ultimately convicted in 1998 of crimes against humanity and served just three years in prison.

Today, elected officials, cabinet members, and law enforcement have been quick to condemn acts of antisemitism, including current President Emmanuel Macron. Indeed, just a couple of weeks ago, in response to the sentencing of a French schoolteacher who waved an antisemitic sign during a demonstration against the government’s Covid policies, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin stated that “Antisemitism is a crime, not an opinion.”

But are statements enough to turn back the tide of Jew hatred in France?

In the meantime, French Jews continue to leave on aliyah; many buy apartments in Israel “just in case.” There are population shifts in the community, with many Jews leaving their old neighborhoods for what they consider to be far safer areas to live. The leadership of the French community has been outspoken about the current state of affairs, and its relationship with the country’s top political leadership has generally been good. Unfortunately, the day-to-day situation is such that the community needs to speak out frequently as antisemitic incidents add up and as questions of security loom large.

The entry into next year’s French presidential election of Eric Zemmour, a far-right journalist and pundit, who is Jewish, has added a new dimension into intra-community politics, sparking debate by supporters and detractors, adding another layer of stress to an atmosphere already fraught with angst about what the future holds.

For much of its history, France has been an immigration nation. That said, it wasn’t that long ago that it was known for expecting of its population allegiance to its iconic motto of “liberte, egalite, fraternite.” Even with a growing, diverse population over the decades, that was the glue that held the nation together. That fabric is now being tested and frayed. The attacks on the Jewish community are a canary-in-the coal mine situation, which indicate that the generations-old common denominators that brought all French people together are in trouble.

In times like this, analysts often look to the educational system for answers. It is more than worrisome that some schools in certain French neighborhoods refuse to teach Holocaust education, because to do so might ipso facto create sympathy for Israel as a homeland for Jews, reinforcing in the process the anti-Zionism already present and growing in those communities. Paroxysms of antisemitic acts, as for example, after the war in Gaza this past May, speak to how hatred of Israel, and by extension French Jewry, drives violence against Jews and their institutions.

Others look to the judiciary. Many in the French Jewish community feel that in cases like that of Sarah Halimi, whose killer shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he took her life and who was not held criminally responsible because he was high on cannabis, Jews are also victims of imperfect justice. The immediate outrage in the community over what is seen as a legal technicality speaks to the need for the French judicial system to review how it tries those who perpetrate violent hate crimes.

And, as elsewhere, social media in France is a daily conveyor belt of antisemitism. France is not the United States, with its distinct constitutional protections. The opportunity to crack down on websites that thrive on Jew hatred is more readily available to French public officials. There must be a doubling down on identifying and tracking down those who traffic in hate on the Internet.

The combination of traditional, nationalist/far right antisemitism and militant anti-Zionism from the far left and the Islamists have produced a disturbing cocktail of hate in France. Contemporary antisemitism there affects us all. It’s not an overstatement to say the soul of France is on trial. Is the will and the means present to reverse the tide?

Going on 22 years into the new century, we anxiously await that answer.

Read the op-ed in the Algemeiner.


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Daniel S. Mariaschin is CEO of B'nai B'rith International.

CEO Essay in The Jerusalem Post: No place like 'Home for the Holidays' - opinion

12/22/2021

 
Once the local radio stations begin playing Perry Como’s “Home for the Holidays”, just before Thanksgiving, nostalgia for my New England childhood goes into high gear.

Como’s hit song, which continues to be played right through the Christmas season, is in a category which is properly secular, and could easily be enjoyed by Jewish families without the uneasiness about other holiday music that tends to the religious side of the spectrum. But more on the music later.

We lived in a real Currier and Ives setting, in southwestern New Hampshire. Snow would often come early, in November, and the pond in front of our house would usually freeze over, and be safe enough to ice skate on, by mid-December.

There were only 25 Jewish families living within a 25-mile radius of where we lived, and only four in my hometown, Swanzey. My parents owned a small women’s clothing store on Keene’s Central Square. My father was in charge of decorating the display windows. A very artistic fellow, he painted, on specially-sized paper, a floor to ceiling winter backdrop mural that imagined looking out a window onto a winter scene, complete with icicles and snow drifts.
​
Some years, we would take a slight detour when driving home from the store to drive around Keene’s Edgewood neighborhood to look at the Christmas lights and decorations that we thought were the city’s best.

​Christmas can be a difficult time for Jewish children raised in an environment where almost everyone else, including my schoolmates, was not Jewish. That said, I was pretty well-grounded by my parents in our traditions, and the build-up to Hanukkah was a time I enjoyed, as well. For us, it was much less about the gift giving than it was about the story of the Maccabees, the excitement of lighting the menorah, my mother’s truly outstanding latkes, and for me, receiving those gold-wrapped chocolate coins in those little mesh bags.

When it came to school, though, it was a different story. In the younger grades, especially, the weeks leading up to Christmas were dominated by talk amongst my schoolmates of long lists of Christmas presents that had been requested, and the uneasiness of wondering whether or not their wishes, and their entreaties to Santa (or their parents), would be granted.

I understood that this kind of gift-giving did not apply to me, but I admit to speculating about what I might ask for, if I could. We always had a big Sears, Roebuck holiday catalog in the house that had a large section on toys. I always had my eye on a toy gas station, complete with pumps and service bays, and especially, a Tonka Toys road construction set, which came with a dump truck, bulldozer and a tiny “Men at Work” sign.

Alas, my parents’ idea of gifts for Hanukkah were more in the vein of books and clothing.

When I was a third-grader, I was the only Jewish student, and only one of three Jews, in the entire school. So when my teacher, Mrs. Phippard, approached me to come to class the next day and tell the story of Hannukah – to use the Yiddish word – I nearly “plotzed.” At that age, and with that holiday, I didn’t want to appear different. But well-prepped by my parents, I summoned up the courage, and told the story (a fight for religious freedom is a tough concept for eight-year-olds) as best I could.

About 10 days before we broke for Christmas vacation, we would draw names in class for gift-giving. Each student would give a gift, and receive one, which was an equitable way to make sure no one went away empty-handed. In the seventh grade, I received something extra: My teacher, Mr. Main, knowing I was by then a sports fanatic, gave me a college basketball media guide for the 1961-1962 season. It was one of the best gifts I have ever received, for any occasion.

IN GRADE SCHOOL, I sang in a boys choir. Our music teacher, Mrs. Howard, was a perfectionist, and drew the best out of those untrained voices. There was always a well-attended annual Christmas concert, and the program included the usual carols and seasonal songs. It usually concluded with, O Holy Night, with its sweeping, powerful build-up, so well-suited for a choral presentation. Mindful of exactly what I was singing about, I was always careful to lip-sync or simply avoid some of the Christological references in the song’s lyrics.

For sure, no one noticed.

In my senior year in high school, my social studies class hosted a group of Head Start kids for a Christmas party. I was asked if I’d be Santa Claus and gladly agreed. Though, they found a costume for me, which fit fine, it was the scratchy fake beard that I recall being unusually irritating. Someone took a photo, which wound up in our yearbook, with the caption: “It was the night before Hanukkah.”

Some years later, when I worked as a disc jockey at one of our local radio stations, Christmas music – unlike today – began being played after Thanksgiving, and even then, on an escalating schedule leading up to Christmas Day. In the winter, I worked weekends and holidays, and on December 25th, I probably was on the air for 8 hours or so.

There were no commercial announcements on Christmas Day, but local businesses could sponsor, PBS-style, albums of holiday music. So I would introduce a segment with something like: “And now, more music of the season, with “Merry Christmas” with Andy Williams brought to you with warm holiday wishes by the Cheshire Tire Company.”
​
Since, at the time, I was usually studying for final exams at the University of New Hampshire, I would often bring my course notebooks with me to the radio station and use the time to study, with the holiday music in the background. An early exercise in multi-tasking!

The holiday season was pervasive; it was everywhere: in the music, the decorations, the chimes in the church belfry at the head of Central Square – about a block away from our store – pealing carols every evening, and especially, in the weather. Indeed, meteorology was very much a part of the moment. The cold, brisk air, snowflakes occasionally drifting down, and sometimes snowstorms – only added to the winter-like setting that most folks, even in warmer climes, associate with the holidays.

Growing up, most folks didn’t realize Jews celebrated a holiday this time of year; they just knew that we didn’t celebrate Christmas. Today, because of greetings to us on TV (we’ve all heard the anchor at the end of the newscast say “... and to our Jewish friends, a Happy Hanukkah!”) and through the internet, many more non-Jews know about Hanukkah – if not the story of the Maccabean uprising, then that it, and the Christmas season, usually coincide.

Looking back, I recall what it was that we as children really enjoyed: the snow, the ice skating, the hot chocolate and “the time of the season.” We shared that excitement with our non-Jewish friends.

But I knew exactly who I was, and today, as then, I stand in awe of the Maccabees and the miracle of the oil burning for 8 days. Still, I was happy for my friends, enjoyed seeing the trees lit up in their living rooms, hearing carols on the radio and learning that being different, and respecting those differences, in fact drew us closer to our classmates and neighbors. The overlap of the holidays on the calendar was an unintended catalyst that nudged us to a more understanding place.

Indeed, Perry Como sang it best: 

“Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays,
“Cause no matter how far away you roam,
“If you want to be happy in a million ways,
“For the holidays,
“You can’t beat home, sweet home.”

Only in America.

Read the essay in The Jerusalem Post.

Picture
Daniel S. Mariaschin is CEO of B'nai B'rith International.
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