The Judeo-Christian Ties That Bind

This is only the fifth time since 1910 that the first night of Hanukkah coincides with Christmas. Not quite a Hanukkah miracle, but a welcome symmetry with the Gregorian calendar.

It’s also a timely reminder of the Judeo-Christian bond. After all, Jesus Christ is claimed by both religions—yes, for different reasons, but why get into that now. The fellowship between Christians and Jews in the United States has nearly always been a mutually reassuring one. In 1790, President George Washington visited the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. On that same day he penned a letter promising American Jewry that their religious liberty, and their rights as citizens, will always be secure in the United States.

In 1992, an antisemite from Billings, Montana tossed a cinderblock through the window of a Jewish home that had lit its Hanukkah menorah for all to see—a tradition that, historically, gets suspended during periods when hostility toward Jews in the Diaspora is on the rise. It both shook, and took, that Montanan Jewish family by surprise.

It shocked the Christians of Billings, too. In response, nearly 10,000 church-going Montanans purchased and lit their own menorahs, proudly displaying them on their windowsills. Many showed up to Jewish homes for a tutorial on the lighting ritual and prayers. Far too many, in fact. Jewish homes had neighbors standing on their lawns waiting for their turn to come inside. Others guarded the local synagogue.

We are now living through very delicate and confusing multiethnic and anti-Western times. The solidarity between Christians and Jews has never been more important. It is perhaps bashert that our respective calendars cooperated to mark the moment.

American Jews have endured threatening protests and hateful actions since Israel began its retaliation against Hamas following the October 7 massacre. Jewish students and faculty have been harassed. Signage and megaphones calling for the rape and murder of Jews—whether they live in Israel or elsewhere—have made Western societies resemble the streets of Tehran. London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels and Madrid are overrun with Islamists who wish to topple governments, impose Sharia law, and weaken Judeo-Christian ties—if not entirely eliminate these religions.

Jews fear wearing religious garments or any insignia of peoplehood or connection to Israel. A soccer match in Holland was outdone in excitement value to a pogrom awaiting Jews on the streets of Amsterdam. Target practice against Hasidim has been going on since even before the pandemic. Jewish businesses have been defaced, and cemeteries desecrated by Hamas supporters. Posters of the Israeli hostages have been ripped from lampposts in cities around the world. A Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony was canceled in Williamsburg, Virginia. Why? Well, . . . it might offend Muslims.

The Jews of Hollywood have predictably kept their heads down, as if they are all auditioning for a remake of “Gentleman’s Agreement.” The risk of standing up to antisemitism, or appearing to root for Israel to finally rid the Middle East of radical Islam, has turned agents and publicists into a propaganda arm of Hamas.

Suddenly, notable foreign policy antisemites like Mark Ruffalo, John Cusack, Lena Headey, the Hadid sisters, Pedro Pascal, Susan Sarandon and Billie Eilish are treated like brainy fellows at a think-tank.

What a shame Angelina Jolie learned absolutely nothing from her father, the lifelong Zionist, Jon Voight.

Meanwhile, anti-Western Islamists are back at it again in Europe. Yet another drove a car into a Christmas market, this time in Magdeburg, Germany, killing five, including a nine-year old. It happened in Trier, Germany in 2020, when a Muslim motorist ploughed through a crowd, also killing five, including a nine-week-old baby. An Islamist in Strasbourg, France opened fire on a Christmas market in 2018. In 2017, in Potsdam, Germany, police disarmed a bomb filled with nails (an Islamist’s signature calling card) hidden inside a Christmas market. There was a truck ramming in Berlin in 2016 that killed fifteen. A man driving a van mowed down ten people in Nantes, France in 2014; that same year in Dijon, France, a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” rammed his car into a Christmas market.

And these are only the ramming of vehicles! There have been scores of Islamist knife attacks all throughout Europe, as well as devastating bombings and shootings.

Open borders are just so festive and fun. Merry Christmas, Europe, courtesy of your most appreciative asylum-seekers. It’s a shame you never bothered to ask at your border: “Do you hold any beliefs that are fundamentally incompatible with liberal democracy and pluralism?”—or more directly, “Do you hate the West?”

Merry Christmas, Europe, courtesy of your most appreciative asylum-seekers. It’s a shame you never bothered to ask at your border: “Do you hold any beliefs that are fundamentally incompatible with liberal democracy and pluralism?”—or more directly, “Do you hate the West?”

Meanwhile, just in time for the holidays, a Palestinian newspaper, Al-Quds, featured an op-ed by a PLO official reminding his readers that Christianity owes its existence to Palestinians because Jesus was “the first Palestinian martyr.” His argument concluded with an ancient canard: the Jews who killed Jesus went on to kill many more Palestinians. (Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, was the first to make this association in 2013.)

The history here is a little off. Jesus was not born in a nation called Palestine governed by Arabs. No such place has ever existed. Moreover, Islam didn’t even come into existence until 700 years after Christ!

Just a few minor details.

Now, back to Europe for more antisemitic, anti-Catholic fantasies—this time supplied by the Vatican! This year’s Nativity scene featured baby Jesus lying on a bed covered in a keffiyeh. The display was created by Representatives of the Palestinian Embassy to the Holy See. It was eventually removed, but not before Pope Francis, who has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, prayed in front of it.

The Vatican’s embrace of Palestinian terror is no worse than a mural of George Floyd in Manchester, England, and a tweet sent out by the Palestine Museum in Connecticut, in which Floyd is draped in keffiyeh, a Palestinian flag as backdrop.

I thought cultural and religious appropriations are forbidden these woke-filled days.

Most people don’t remember that Jerusalem was not Israel’s united capital until it reclaimed the Old City back in 1967. For the first 19 years of Israel’s existence, the West Bank and the Old City were completely occupied by Jordan. And guess what: the Church of the Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, didn’t fare so well.

It was only when Israel reclaimed the West Bank that both houses of Christian worship were restored. Israelis then became the caretakers of Christian worshippers.

Judaic and Christian traditions are both under attack by encroaching Islam. Let’s take a cue from this year’s calendar: These ties that bind need reinforcement.

Judaic and Christian traditions are both under attack by encroaching Islam. Let’s take a cue from this year’s calendar: These ties that bind need reinforcement.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Is Israel Fighting a Just War in Gaza?”