How to Spell Chanukah...And Other Holiday Dilemmas

November 5, 2007
Despite a cheery title, the writers in this odd little holiday book tackle their subject-and its attendant traditions of family, guilt and, well, tradition-with ambivalence, a real sense of soul-searching and a bit of self-pity. Trying to make peace with their Chanukah memories, most of these writers are quick to point out its relative unimportance in the Jewish roster of holidays, inflated by its proximity to Christmas; still, their stories are clearly vivifying. There's a great deal of kvetching over the influence and excess of Christmas, and not just its consumerism; Jill Kargman, for example, writes about some casual mid-sermon anti-Semitism at a midnight mass. There's also solidarity to be found, as in Peter Orner's story of growing up in a family of "Christmas-tree Jews": "Let me be clear: we had no relationship with Christ beyond loving the mall like everyone else in America." Standouts include graphic artist Eric Orner's "Traditions Break," a compact and involving story about a young woman's first Chanukah alone; Joanna Smith Rakoff's "Dolls of the World," an accomplished troubled-family tale; and Josh Braff's "The Blue Team," which happily extols, "What a holiday.... No synagogue, no guilt, no mortar, and no real lesson to be absorbed and passed down to my Jewish offspring. Thank God."