That #Hanukkah & #Christmas occur at the same season (today, in fact, they coincide) can, in modern society, lead to various misinterpretations & distortions: whether treating #Hanukkah as a sort of second-rate Christmas, or, alternatively, inflating its importance (due to pressures of consumerism & acculturation), or just mashing up #Christmas, #Hanukkah, & #Kwanzaa into one common celebration of light & family. But there are some overlaps
A thread of miscellany. #Mazeldon #MedinatAmerica
Many in the Anglo-American world will be familiar with the #Hanukkah song Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages).
https://youtu.be/MjqopjqqZeU
1st half: Hebrew, 2nd English
Text: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27oz_Tzur#Text
Now listen to this:
Medieval Jews found the melody in the German secular culture, & Luther used it, too (+ elaborations by Buxtehude & Bach). It re-entered Christian culture as a Jewish melody via Marcello
Until the #EarlyModern era, the #MiddleEast & #NorthAfrica were home to the largest #Jewish #population, after which Europe surpassed them. For that reason & due to #immigration patterns, this #Ashkenazi culture is dominant in USA.
There is, however, unity in diversity. The C12 #Hanukkah poem Ma'oz Tzur is used in both Askhenazi & #Sephardi / #Mizrachi traditions, but the melodies are refreshingly different:
Back to Europe.
#Nazi #Berlin 1935. Manfred Swarsensky, rabbi of the largest #Jewish community there, writes Das jüdische Jahr (The Jewish Year). It is an act of both education & resistance in the face of Nazi oppression.
He explains the meaning of #Hanukkah: "the power of the few,” & the victory over oppressors embodied by the song Maoz Tzur. He later goes on to contrast good vs. bad assimilation: openness to other cultures vs. abandonment of self & self-respect
Rabbi Manfred Erich Swarsensky (PT; 1906-81) was both a great intellectual & a charismatic leader of the largest #Jewish community in #Berlin (NB interdenominational). On #Kristallnacht, the Nazis burned his preferred synagogue (https://www.lbi.org/griffinger/record/207084) & sent him to #KZ #Sachsenhausen #ConcentrationCamp.
Released in 1939, he settled in #Wisconsin, where he led a reform congregation & became a leading figure in civic & interfaith life
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/HolocaustSurvivors/Swarsensky.asp
“‘'Death to Judah,’ so the flag says. ‘Judah lives forever,’ so the light answers,”' read the inscription on the back.
When this photo of a #Hannukah #Menorah on a windowsill opposite a building with a #Nazi flag went viral some years ago, the symbolism seemed almost too good to be true
But not only was the photo real. This year, the menorah returned from Jerusalem to #Germany for ceremonies in its native Kiel & with the #German President
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/world/europe/menorah-hanukkah-germany.html
#Mazeldon #MedinatAmerica 6/n
We began with a #medieval #German secular song as #Hanukkah melody but the influence runs in 2 directions:
"Dreaming of a #Jewish #Christmas: A musical documentary about the amazing story of a group of Jewish songwriters who wrote the soundtrack to Christmas"
https://dreamingofajewishchristmas.com
&
"#Jews from the #Ottoman Empire pioneered the Christmas-lights market a century ago—but nativism, #antisemitism & #Islamophobia obscured this history"