Christmas in Yiddish Tradition - Jordan Chad

Offers the provocative argument that Jews had long celebrated Christmas in the "Old World"This book seeks to answer a perplexing question: Why were Christmas traditions once transmitted in Yiddish, a language exclusive to non-Christians? 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. Prior to that time, Jewish midwinter traditions developed as variants of midwinter traditions that were widespread across neighboring European communities. Christmas in Yiddish Tradition recounts how Jews and Christians over the past millennium each awaited supernatural visits from diverse versions of Santa Claus. They only came to fully Christianiz
více informací