Chanukah and Thanksgiving mashup to create 'Thanksgivukkah'

Ben Popken NBC News

In a once-in-a-lifetime convergence of calendars, Chanukah and Thanksgiving fall on the same day this year. But rather than choose between which holiday to celebrate, some families are saying "more please" to both. That means sweet potato latkes and challah-stuffed turkey is getting served up beside a cornucopia overflowing with chocolate gelt, lit by the flickering of a turkey-shaped menorah.

Happy "Thanksgivukkah!"

Because the Jewish and Gregorian calendars aren't calculated the same way, Chanukah shows up at different times each year. Usually the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights happens in December, but this year, it falls on Turkey Day. The convergence has only happened once before, in 1888, and won't be seen again until 2070 and again in 2165, according to calculations by Jonathan Mizrahi, a quantum physicist at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. After that, the two holidays aren't set to overlap until 76,695.

So if you ever wondered what turkey would taste like if it had a little more "schmaltz" — rendered chicken fat, a staple of traditional Jewish cuisine — this is the year.

Trish Meyers, a 41-year old stay-at-home mom in Brandon, Fla., already has in mind to put together eight turkey-shaped tapers in her house to create a crossover menorah. She was brought up Christian and her husband is Jewish. Normally the Meyers and their two daughters, 12 and 19, observe Chanukah at home, and then visit family for Thanksgiving. This year, they're hosting both for all 20 guests. It will be the first time Trish's side of the family has experienced a Chanukah celebration.

Besides dreidel spinning and songs, bourbon sweet potato kugel, cranberry brisket sliders and challah-stuffed turkey are on order, combining cuisines from both menus into single dishes.

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Boundaries Blur Between Jews and Christians in Shocking Ways

Christmas Trees Common — Even Belief in Jesus as 'Messiah'

By Josh Nathan-Kazis for the Forwards

Are you Jewish or Christian? Increasingly, Americans seem to be checking both boxes, according to the 2013 Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews.

It’s not just that a lot of Jews have Christmas trees, though 32% say they do; it’s that 34% of Jews said that they think being Jewish is compatible with believing that Jesus is the Messiah, a belief that’s theologically anathema to traditional Judaism.
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Meanwhile, Pew estimates that there are 1.2 million non-Jewish Americans who identify as sort-of-Jewish, even though they are not Jewish by religion and have no Jewish family background.

Findings like these in the new Pew survey point to the emergence of a hazy category between Judaism and Christianity that’s something between a new syncretic religion and a theological muddle.

“It points to the blurring boundaries between Jews and non-Jews,” said Sara Bunin Benor, a professor at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who acted as an adviser to the Pew study. “More people than in the past believe that you can be both Jewish and Christian.”

Much of that blurring, according to Benor, is due to intermarriage. The Pew survey found that rates of intermarriage have risen steadily since the 1970s, with 58% of Jews who married between 2005 and 2013 marrying a non-Jew.

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A Biblical Family Tree

By Tamar Fox for Jewniverse

From classics like One Hundred Years of Solitude to recent hits like Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell series, complicated tales often come with charts or maps at the front to help you keep track of the characters and their movements.

If novels can do this, why not the the original complicated tale? That is, the Bible. If you’ve ever found yourself bogged down in the seemingly endless begats of Genesis, an English-Canadian man named Luke Martin has got you covered with this comprehensive Biblical family tree. Beginning with Adam and going all the way through Moses, the chart clearly lays out the often complex families we read about in the first two books of the Torah.

Spending some time with the family tree is a great way to remind yourself about some of the often overlooked corners of the family. For instance, did you remember that after Sarah died Abraham went on to have 6 other children with Keturah? Or that Esau had a grandson named Amalek (the same name given to a nation bent on annihilating the Israelites)?

We can’t wait to print this one out and paste it into our Bible.

At His Untraditional Bar Mitzvah, A Son With Autism Leads The Congregation

by Rabbi Rebecca Schorr for The Jewish Week

A piece of my soul died when we decided that Ben’s autism would necessitate a reexamination of a conventional Bar Mitzvah service. Having guided so many young people through their studies towards becoming Bar or Bat Mitzvah, I yearned to have the unique privilege of preparing my own son, my firstborn, the way my father, also a rabbi, had long ago prepared me.

Though Ben’s desire to mark this occasion by participating in our local Walk Now for Autism Speaks was one which we fully embraced, I mourned the demise of a fantasy: standing beside my child as he took his place in the chain of our family’s tradition, led his congregation in prayer, chanted from the Torah and delivered a d’var Torah, or commentary, upon reaching the age of commandments.

Martin Buber, one of the preeminent Jewish theologians of the last century, divides the human experience into two categories: I-It, in which we hold something back from another person, I-Thou, in which we share ourselves totally. He posits that our lives are enhanced and defined by our relationships – with our goal of being in relationship with God as the Ultimate Thou. Between a parent and child, I-Thou moments occur more frequently as the child matures. But parents of a child on the autism spectrum fear they might never come.

Yet as we moved through the weekend, I was taken aback by the abundance of I-Thou moments. At several points, I remember thinking to myself that I was experiencing such abject holiness and perfection that I had to emblaze it on my very soul.

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