https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/14/arts/television/a-charlie-brown-christmas.html
From the tv editor of the Times, a cultural Jew. Maybe someone has a gift link to offer.
Here’s a link to the show on Amazon Prime:
https://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Brown-Christmas-Ann-Altieri/dp/B001K2JE9K
Here you go
It was a lovely beautifully written homage to a classic.
1 Like
@oldmom4896 wondering what a cultural Jew is? I am truly curious
1 Like
1 Like
Thank you so much for the gift link! Shared widely!
3 Likes
It means different things to different people. The author was born to a Jewish mother and a Christian father. She is Jewish by Jewish law, but attended church as a child and grew up with Christian holidays and traditions.
When people refer to themselves as culturally Jewish, I assume that they are Jewish by birth but don’t attend temple or participate in the religious aspect of Judiasm. I suppose it is like a Christian who doesn’t go to church and celebrates a secular Christmas.
In the article, the author explains it as:
As I got older, things got more complicated. I stopped going to church and stopped believing. I identified ethnically and culturally as Jewish, more so once I moved to New York, the finest place on Earth to be a nonpracticing secular Jew, and married into a Jewish family. I don’t go to temple, but I fry a mean Hanukkah doughnut.
3 Likes
All the food, but observance is selective. Cultural Jews usually grew up in Jewish communities and identify with their Jewish heritage, but then in adulthood keep the observances that mean the most to them (often holidays that were important in their families) while leaving the rest behind. They rarely go to synagogue, for example, except for special occasions. They might also be in interfaith marriages, might be atheist or agnostic, or might live in a community where it’s easy to partake in Jewish traditions to a degree that feels comfortable, without the pressure to be more observant.
3 Likes
Yes, I was raised by Buddhist Jewish hippies, we had all the food and holidays. I actually didn’t know that Judaism was a religion when I was a young child, and I thought the holidays were secular / cultural, like Thanksgiving. I thought the difference between Jews and Christians was that Christians had a religion and believed in God! 
3 Likes
lol, I grew up with Christmas (my amazing, wonderful Oma, a Hitler refugee, converted when she married Opa but always had a tree in their apartment on 140th St. and Broadway in Manhattan after they arrived in 1939).
I had absolutely no idea about the religious aspects until I started Kindergarten, walking from our Levitt house in Hicksville, Long Island, NY where almost all the kids were Irish and Italian and there was plenty of movement back and forth between the public schools and nearby Catholic schools (Holy Family and St. Ignatius).
It was an amazing holiday for our family, opening presents on Christmas eve because Oma was a deputy Santa Claus and had permission from the big guy.
2 Likes
My dad said his family always had a Christmas tree when he was growing up, too… he had very fond memories of it! He said it was beautiful, lit with real candles! His family had also fled Hitler. Back in Germany they had been reform Jews (or whatever they called it in Germany, I’m not sure the reform movement had that name back then), and had Christmas trees and organ music in the synagogue, etc.
I eventually learned about Judaism as a religion from a Catholic school friend. Sounds a lot like your story 
2 Likes
By any chance, did you cross paths with Rabbi Don Singer?
1 Like
Not familiar with him. But as an adult I did get involved with the Jewish meditation center in SF with Rabbi Alan Lew (when he was still living) and Zoketsu Norman Fischer.
3 Likes
For me, a cultural Jew is the same thing as being, say, a Greek-American or Korean-American who was born here. It’s an ethnicity, with all the linguistic, social, and culinary heritage that goes along with that.
When you hear this term in the U.S., the speaker is usually referring to Ashkenazi culture, which is the ethnic group of Yiddish-speaking Jews who lived in Central and Eastern Europe, especially as this culture evolved in Northeastern cities in the 20th century. The Ashkenazi shared a religion, but not an everyday language or culture, with Jews in places like Morocco and Iraq (Mizrahi Jews) for many centuries.
If I went and got baptized as a Catholic, I would still be an Ashkenazi Jew.
9 Likes
My grandmother, born in Chicago in 1917, was resolutely secular – even a Communist in the '30s. She always had a Christmas tree, presents, carols, etc., so my mother brought us up with those things too. People would ask me which of my parents was Jewish. Both of them, and both atheists! The only difference is that one loves Christmas and the other is a Grinch.
1 Like
That’s really interesting! My father had an uncle who was a Communist.
I once met an Israeli woman living in Connecticut who grew up in a kibbutz in Israel where they had feasts on Yom Kippur, just to show their secularity (is that a word?). That stopped with the Yom Kippur war.
2 Likes
I’m not Jewish but I do have a fondness for the Charlie Brown Christmas. It has always struck me as slightly melancholy yet sincere. I can see how it could appeal to someone from any religious/cultural background. And, of course, there is the fantastic music.
2 Likes
I read this when it was first published in NYT last week. I thought it was beautifully written. I’m a big fan of the Charlie Brown Christmas.
2 Likes
Brief historical note: the reform movement is actually older than the conservative movement, and it had its origins in 19th-century Germany. The conservative movement also originated in Germany, among Jews who thought the reform practices were too secular but did not want the strictures of orthodox practice. So conservatism is just a little bit more recent than reform.
Yes, I knew it was a older movement, I just don’t know when they started to consider themselves a separate movement and when they began to call themselves “reform.” German Jews varied a lot in how religious they were… my dad’s family was apparently quite non-religious going back for centuries (!), although they had a strong cultural Jewish identity.
1 Like