Leaving the States for Israel on Dec. 24, I was confronted by puzzling looks and questions of “What, you’re missing Christmas?”

“Oh, right” I said. “Christmas. When is that again?”

Christmas is just not on my calendar. Hard to believe maybe, but as a resident of Jerusalem, Israel (not Texas), Christmas is as normal a day as any other. Yes, Jerusalem is a city deemed holy to three faiths, Christianity being one of them, and of course Christmas is a pretty big deal for the Christians. In Bethlehem, Nazareth and a few other places, bells announcing the day designated as the birth of the messiah ring out loud and clear, but that’s about it.

Well, that’s not really it; Christmas has become a little trendy among Israel’s immigrants from the Former Soviet Union. An increasingly common scene is the occasional wreath hung on a wall, or a Santa hat worn by a waitress in a swanky Russian-speaking restaurant in Jaffa or South Tel Aviv (home to many a foreign worker, Darfur refugee or Russian immigrant). 

It’s not that these people harbor any religious inkling one way or another, it’s just a cultural relic of life back in the old country. They’re sort of like the typical atheist who gets caught up “in the Christmas spirit…”

Some Israelis are of course agitated by the influx of Christmas (and Hallmark cheesiness) in the Jewish State. 

“Our holiday season occurs two months earlier – during the Jewish holidays!” espoused one politician when confronted on the matter. It’s a sentiment doubtlessly maintained by many others.

But what about Hanukah? Yes, Hanukah. Well, what about it. To make it perfectly clear, Hanukah is NOT the Jewish Christmas. It has nothing to do with Christmas, and never has, except for a slight and coincidental seasonal overlap.

Hanukah is not mentioned in the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible, but rather in the post-biblical apocryphal books Maccabees I and II. These books describe an eight-day celebration, modeled on the festival of Sukkot, celebrated in the fall, of the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BCE, after the Maccabees defeated the Syrian Hellenist rulers and after they purified the Temple.

Later, the rabbis of the Talmud introduced the story of a miracle in which one day’s worth of oil burned for eight days as the reason for lighting candles on eight nights. At that time, the Jews were suffering greatly from the physical, economic and spiritual devastation of the Roman’s quashing of the Bar Kochba revolt, and they wanted both to rekindle faith and to discourage future rebellions.

Even later than that, the Zionist movement brought it back as a national and nationalist holiday symbolizing a time when Jews physically and militarily overcame their adversaries, triumphantly restoring Jewish sovereignty in their land. A point they cared about way more than any oil lasting. They rewrote the songs and altered the prayers to fit their agenda (c’mon we all do that).

However, we now have a case in which a solid plurality of Israelis (more than 45 percent) actually believe the miracle to be the reason we celebrate. OK, I’m not against it necessarily, I mean it’s not a bad thing that as a remnant of this miraculous oil we now eat foods deep-fried in oil.

Latkes, Levivot (Hebrew and Yiddish for potato pancake) are the classic, but the “sufganya” has been in bakeries for three weeks prior to celebrating. To call it a Jelly doughnut, would be a great injustice. It is a thick jelly-filled dough roll deep fried in oil. It’s called a sufganyot from the word “Sfog” meaning sponge or something that soaks up all the oil. Good times, especially with caramel, chocolate and dulce de leche.

This is our way of Hallmarkizing the holiday.

What do we look forward to on the holiday? Good question. Gift giving and presents is a strictly American phenomenon brought on largely by American Jewish kids jealous of their non-Jewish friends racking it in on Christmas. So, no presents, but lots of parties, good food and the opportunity for some creativity.

It is a once-in-a-year experience to take a walking tour of some of the ultra-Orthodox neighbors and see everyone’s menorah (candelabra) burning in the window, and I am looking forward to a friend’s “Def Hanukah Jam,” an open-mic music and poetry slam based on the holiday themes of miracles, Jewish survival, and basically whatever else.

Should be a good time.

I’m hoping to discover something else as well.

Many of my meditative-kabbalah type friends like to discuss the inner-light that we all search for during this festival. I don’t know much about that, but this year I am actively pursuing a more enlightened experience when I light my candles.

Happy Hanukah.

— — —

Josh Weinberg is an educator, amateur tour guide and freelance writer living in Jerusalem, Israel.  He teaches Jewish History for high school and post-high school programs in and around Jerusalem.  Josh is originally from Chicago and loves music, hiking and the outdoors, playing volleyball and eating houmous.

Josh is a guest writer for This Ordinary Day’s Sunday Specials. If you would like to participate in Sunday Specials, please click here.

Work’s been busy lately. Crazy. Stressful. You’d think working with my family might make it worse, but it actually doesn’t. In fact, no matter how stressful my day has been, I can bet $20 that my dad’s has been worse. As the owner of our family’s construction management and general contracting company, the buck stops with him, which makes for some pretty long days.

But in the midst of the daily grind, we sometimes are pleasantly surprised when we are able to connect as a family.

Friday was a typical day at the office. My big brother Corey, an estimator at the office, helped me ship more than 100 pounds of plans back to their respective printers. I made a copy of the proposal I had been working on for our archives. I did some housekeeping, organizing and filing. Just before noon, Dad ushered me into the conference room.

The room is surrounded on three sides by cherry wood cabinets and green marble countertops, and the fourth side is a floor-to-ceiling window. The conference table is cherry wood also and is bordered by big, soft, gray chairs. I feel like a little kid when I sit in them sometimes. Dad had his laptop hooked up to the projector, which he had been using earlier to go over our safety manuals with some coworkers.

He pulled up a Web site about an Excellence in Architecture awards banquet coming up. We chatted about it, wondered if we should think about going, to network. I promised to look into it. Corey poked his head in, and took a seat. We started small talk…what were we wearing to the company Christmas party Saturday? When was Corey’s girlfriend getting into town? Should we all ride together to Bloomington that night to see my little brother’s play?

“What do you guys want for lunch?” Dad said, digging into his back pocket for his wallet. “I’ll get ya lunch. But I won’t buy it for anyone else. They can get their own damn lunch.” He winked teasingly at me. I laughed, relieved to see Dad was letting some of the week’s stress go.

“Well, I’m not getting another Whopper from Burger King,” Corey said, shaking his head. “I had one for lunch yesterday, and this morning I was three pounds heavier.” We all laughed.

“Nah,” Dad said, “We’ll let Jamie pick. She always picks something healthy.”

We sat and joked around for a bit. Dad stretched back in his chair, which reclines almost as much as a La-Z-Boy, with his arms straight back in the air and just laid there. “Ah,” he let out a sigh. “I just can’t work today. I just can’t get anything done for the life of me.”

“You should update your Facebook,” Corey said with a straight face. “That’s what I do.”  Laughter. “Oh, OK,” Dad said, sitting back up and facing his laptop again, suddenly serious.

“Good idea. Mom wants me to pick a profile picture anyways. She e-mailed me one she wants me to put on there.”

He pulled up his Facebook account, which was now being projected onto the pull-down screen in the front of the room. I showed him how to upload photos, tag photos, and set his profile picture. Mom had sent him a picture she took of him on the beach in khakis, a polo shirt and sunglasses. He cropped it how he wanted it and posted it.

He looked down through his bifocals at the photo. “I look good,” he said. He sent mom a message saying, “Jamie helped me put a picture on my profile! Actually she did not have a clue what the hell was going on and Corey had to take over. Love ya, Jim.”

We all laughed, and it felt good to find this pocket of fun in a place that had been so heavy with responsibilities, to-do lists, and stress all week. It was even better to see Dad laughing and smiling.

I often feel that THIS Dad… the one sharing time with his family and telling jokes and laughing… is the one he’d rather be all the time. But because he loves us so much, he has worked so hard for so many years so that we would have what we needed and much of what we wanted growing up… all the way up to my wedding last year.

The door to the conference room opened and my uncle, CFO of the company, stopped. “What are you guys DOING?” he asked, looking at Dad’s profile on the screen.

“We are networking.” Corey said, a dramatically innocent look on his face. All three men laughed, their voices booming, and I knew they could be heard all the way down the halls because I have heard them myself before back by my desk on the other side of the office.

“Actually we’re just about to get lunch,” Dad said.

“Oh,” Uncle Fred said loudly, laughing. His voice booms when he laughs. “I see. Taking a break before lunch. I get it.”

He rolled his eyes and left the room. I didn’t want to go back to work. I didn’t even want to leave to pick up the sandwiches. This moment was too fun and too rare. I know Dad has made so many sacrifices for us, even giving us a chance to work in his office and believing we could do things we had never considered doing. While deep down he knows we can do our jobs, I think an even deeper place just longs to be around his family. It’s a blessing to have the best of both worlds.

For now, anyway.

My grandpa is awesome. Ten things you should know about him:

1. His name is Ennis Hugh (or E.H.) but nobody knows him as such. Ask anyone in tiny Elkhart, Kansas (population: 2,200), and they’ll say, yes, of course they know Shorty McCarter. He’s almost certainly fixed a sink, a driveway or built an addition to the house of just about everyone in town, all without any of them knowing that “Shorty” isn’t his God-given name. Nobody knows how it got started, but it stuck. He introduces himself as Shorty, he answers his phone as Shorty and his private contracting business is operated under the title of E.H. “Shorty” McCarter.

Bonus fact: Shorty despises the name Ennis with the sort of venom that most people hold back for terrorism, taxes or childhood bullies. Nobody knows why.

2. He met my grandma playing pinball when they were 17. How sickeningly sweet of a cliché is that? And to top it off, she beat him and he fell in love. I grew up reciting that story. Now that I know what I know about teenagers (despite the era) I’m convinced it was probably not as innocent as it sounds, but I’ll keep the charade going. They met playing pinball. She beat him and he fell in love. Nice story.

3. From his five kids, he has12 grandkids and, to this point, eight great-grandkids. They all call him Papa Shorty. And every one of them feels special every time they see him. He’s always had this way of sounding pleasantly surprised when one of us calls him that makes us feel like we’re each his favorite. He’s always found small ways of surprising us individually — doing nice things that we’re convinced he doesn’t do for the others. Each of us thinks we’re his favorite, and I’m pretty sure we’re all right.

4. He’s spent all but a handful of his 84 years living in the southwest Kansas, Oklahoma/Texas panhandle area. Those few years were on the West Coast, which I’ll explain later. He defines that area and that area defines him. He’s never been a man who needs a lot to get by, and high society is lost on him, a trait I adore. He’s not country, but he fits in a small town. He’s the type of person that everyone in town knows, respects and depends on. If he’s done any work on your house in the last 20 years and you have a problem, you can call him any time of day and he’ll be there to fix it. For most of my life, I’ve walked into hardware stores, cafes and grocery stores and seen first-hand the sort of clout he carries in a town where hard work and loyalty still means something.

5. He’s a hardcore baseball fan. He’s kept a running baseball bet with my Uncle Kent since the mid-70s, and neither of them are sure who’s winning. His favorite sports teams are the San Diego Padres, Atlanta Braves and Green Bay Packers. His favorite athletes of all-time are Fran Tarkenton, Brett Favre and Greg Maddux. He respects toughness above all else, and he’s not afraid to pull for an underdog. His prowess as a sports fan in general heavily influenced the way I’ve watched sports and cheered for teams. He says Maddux is the best athlete he ever saw.

6. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War in the 1950s, but up until two years ago, had never talked about his service to anyone in my family. He wasn’t ashamed of anything he had done, and he wasn’t scarred by the experience. Most of his service was uneventful sailing and he didn’t see a lot of conflict, but he lost a few friends and always considered himself lucky to make it back. He never saw the point of talking about it — it was a responsibility he had, and he performed his duty. End of story. He spent almost three years away from his family and wife, Fayetta, and the sense of community he felt while he was stationed in San Diego is what makes him a Padres fan today. He’s never forgotten that, even though he hasn’t been back since.

7. He stopped smoking the day he learned his oldest child, my mom, was pregnant with my sister, making him a grandfather for the first time. In exchange, I never started. Well, there were lots of reasons for that, but his dedication to stop helped me make up my mind. It’s a small choice in life, the decision not to smoke, and I don’t look down on anyone who does, but when someone you grow up admiring does or doesn’t do something, it makes you want to do the same. More than the decision not to smoke, I think his action inspired me more to value the well-being of family more than anything else.

8. He retired from a natural gas company in the 1980s and started a business doing the thing he had always been best at: building and fixing things. The man can fix anything. He can drive around Elkhart tell all sorts of stories about who has lived where, what they did for a living and where their kids live now. Between the time I was four and 14, my favorite place to be was out on a job site “working” with Papa Shorty. Of course, that mostly consisted of keeping myself busy cleaning up supplies, exploring the area or occasionally helping out by measuring boards for him. As I got older, he gave me a little more responsibility, but never more than I wanted. Being out there with him was never about work, but about having an OK time and keeping him company.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I went to work for him as an actual employee. He treated me as such. Told me what to do, got mad at me when I messed something up, and didn’t talk to me any differently than any of the other workers. The only difference was that at the end of the day, I was the only one he was talking to when he’d walk over and say, “How about dinner?”

Now I wish that after a hard day, or when things aren’t going great, I could go out to a job site and help him in whatever way he needs it.

9. He’s still as awesome as ever. I went out to Elkhart for Thanksgiving and I took my niece and nephew out to his job site. He worked in a bitterly cold storage shed that was 5 miles away from anything else, wiring a 30-foot garage door. I was proud and a little ashamed that it was something I couldn’t have done in a million years, and yet there he was, at his age, getting it done.

10. He’s my idol. In that summer that I worked for him, he taught me a tough lesson about manual labor and what it means to work hard. He told me at the end of the summer that he hoped I would never want to go back and work for him. I knew then and I know now that he didn’t mean it as a slight against my abilities or my work ethic; he just wanted to see me get through with school and make something of myself.

Occasionally I feel guilty about the fact that I went to college and got a desk job in academia. It’s so far removed from the blue-collar roots my grandpa raised me from. But anytime I start to think anything like that, I think of how proud of me I know my hero is, and that keeps me going.

Whatever his motivation is, he keeps his priorities in line. When my grandma got sick and needed to relocate for dialysis treatments, my grandpa began commuting two hours each day to keep his business afloat. He took care of her every need and never complained. He put family first, and continues to do so now that she’s been gone for 10 years. It’s the little things that make the difference. For example, there’s nothing he’ll ever be able to tell me that will make me believe that the excuse he used the day after Thanksgiving this year, that he needed to run to town to get some parts, was legit. He could tell his great-grandkids were getting bored and were ready to go home. With a fake look of disgust that I recognized from my own childhood, he came down from his ladder in the freezing shed and asked us an old familiar question:

“How about dinner?”

I promise that I talk about things other than my running class. But in light of my last post, I thought an update was in order.

When we had our next class, the coach pointedly looked my way as she explained what we were doing (at least this was progress from the usual “Just run.”)

She instructed us to run around the Great Lawn in Central Park, a route we’ve taken many times before (the same route of the earlier incident). If someone was too far ahead of the rest, she should run to the back of the line in order to keep the group together. If there was a small group at the front, they could run a little ahead but still had to turn around once they were four lampposts ahead of the group.

This way, the faster people in the group could still run the entire time and our instructor could still call out to everyone, regardless of pace.

As my group steadily made our way back to the end of the line, we chatted with other people in our class about whether we were wearing enough layers and how much time we had left. Normally we wouldn’t be running by each other, but the new system helped the group bond.

I also noticed a woman — who is recovering from a knee injury and runs carefully — at the front. She looked like she was struggling or in pain, but she kept going. It was her turn to be in front. All by herself. The rest of us a significant amount behind. She was able to feel what it was like to be the line leader. To lead the way.

And that was the moment I didn’t care that I felt like I was going in circles or that turning around didn’t seem so efficient or that I wasn’t in front. That was when I didn’t care what my speed was.

Because we all deserve a turn to be the leader of the pack.

I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. Since I normally wake at 4:30 or 5, 5:30 was quite a luxury.

5:28… 5:29… trumpets! And drums! And shouting Spanish sprang out of my speakers.

It was cold.

The chill forced me to pull my head under my covers. I refused to acknowledge the jumble of Spanish noises emitted by my clock-radio. I refused to admit that it was, indeed, morning and that work would commence shortly. A goose-bumped arm stretched out from my bed and hit the snooze button.

5:38… 5:39… SABES something something EN VIERNES something something DEL MUNDO!

My Spanish was rusty under ideal conditions, so a radio guy with a radio voice yelling about something at 5:40 a.m. just did not form a coherent sentence. I hid from whatever excitement the radio guy was selling. I braced myself against the wave of “responsibility” and “duty” and “obligations” that bounced in my brain. My hand snaked out from the covers again and lightly, delicately pressed the snooze button.

5:48… 5:49… Soothing notes crescendo to the entrance of a soft female voice, whispering beautiful Spanish phrases at my semi-coherent form.

I stretched. I turned off the alarm. I sat up. I pulled on sweatpants. I pulled on a sweatshirt. I began to face the day.

The day turned out to be amazing. I received professional feedback that lauded and encouraged and challenged. I discussed the theories of motion formulated by three smart dead dudes: Aristotle, da Vinci and Galileo. My students became experts on using graphing calculators to perform quadratic regression. My students articulated the criteria for distinguishing between a linear data set and a quadratic data set. I ran four miles in blustery, chilly conditions. I debated the merits of a GPS watch: speed, distance, elevation, heart rate. I made and consumed steak fajitas. I watched my favorite TV show.

I did all these things and still had time to hit the snooze button. Twice. In fact, hitting the snooze button did not bring the world to a halt. Hitting the snooze button did not make my students not learn, or jeopardize my job status or make my hair fall out or turn my brain to jelly or slow my metabolism so I no longer craved food. The world continued to function, even though I was not operating at my normal post.

I hardly ever hit the snooze button. I am a firm believer in the idea that “If I need extra sleep, I should just build it in. Because, who am I kidding anyway? Nobody gets up at 4 a.m.” approach to the snooze button. In other words, I don’t use, I just set my alarm 10 minutes later and enjoy the extra sleep in blissful peace, completely devoid of regularly scheduled 10 minute bursts of MEGA101 LATINO AND PROUD!

This morning however reminded me of the very important axiom: I am not as important as I think. And I think it this a very good thing for me to remember.

Since adulthood, I haven’t gotten too jazzed about Christmas music. I get misty from the occasional Silent Night at just the right solitary driving moment, but usually, the incessant holiday music in stores and radios gets on my nerves. Being both obnoxious and fond of appearing too smart for sap, I show off the irritation. I’ve made gagging sounds when a particularly noxious cover comes on (Celine Dion’s What Child Is This, say), so my shopmate will know I’m not one of those maudlin ninnies who gets all farklempt about the holidays.

Until this year.

It may be the voracious homesickness that has been gnawing at me since before Halloween, or the increased communication with my sister Alex that feeds it, or the warm, sunshiney absence of any winter weather in SoCal (the most glorious absence EVER). Or maybe it’s because I put my schedule on amphetamines this semester, and just am aching for a break. (More accurately, I’m coughing, sneezing, nose-blowing and dragging my ass for a break.) Regardless, I was at beauty megastore Ulta getting a haircut, and I couldn’t get enough of Bing Crosby and Irving Berlin and the whole schmaltzy gang. I was at a grocery store buying Clorox wipes (so the coughing, sneezing, nose-blowing and ass-dragging doesn’t spread throughout the office) and gleefully looked up — literally looked up — at the speakers when Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas came on.

Then there was Santa Baby on the way to work one day. I had poor reception and turned it up, static and all, so I could catch all the words and breathiness of Eartha Kitt, who, by the way, played Catwoman in the 1960s Batman series. The next day, I wrote an e-mail to a friend musing on the incredible sexiness of the song, and how that kind of coy innuendo just doesn’t happen anymore — and THEN I was worried. Because at that point, Christmas music became an intellectual exercise — which means I’m really starting to like it. Christmas music made it to first base.

This susceptibility isn’t the first time fate has smacked around my too-thinking-for-feeling airs. In high school, I was cynical, intolerant and mean — and proud of it. I was best friends with two boys, and we’d cruise around, smoking cigarettes and making fun of the idiocy of others, especially girls. We called ourselves The Trifecta, and we were hilarious. I was immune to typical teenage girlishness then: I didn’t admit crushes, confess insecurity or reveal anything. “You’re 90 percent male,” one of my best friends said, assessing my cold-cruel-logic mentality. Then, after graduation, I got my face rocked: I fell in love.

It was a turbulent, unhealthy, devastating summertime romance*, but one of the gobs of lessons I learned from it was that I’m as susceptible to sentimentality as anyone else. Friends and family were astounded at my transformation that summer. I’d go from gleeful to devastated in one phone call, and back up again a love letter later. Nobody knew what to tell me. I got dumped in August.

This time around, the humbling is much gentler. My pride puffed me up, sneakily, through work and being busy — I hurtled through the pages of my planner, shot from a scheduling cannon. I needed to be brought back to earth.

I’d never have thought a sexy 1950s singer would be the one to bring me down, but it’s Christmastime, and if nothing else, Christmas proves one thing: The Lord works in mysterious ways.

*We’re friends now.