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Just yesterday, I mentioned that a variety of more rural Canadians that I met on my last visit to the area all expressed some form of concern about their "culture changing" with respect to significant immigration. I didn't have great examples, because I'm still mostly an outsider to them.
This morning, my wife shared this with me. The Moncton city hall has, for the last twenty years, displayed a large menorah around Hanukkah. That tradition ends this year. The city cited "separation of church and state" as the driver of their change of course, as if something in the legal landscape has changed in the last twenty years concerning public displays of religious symbols. Spoiler: nothing in the legal landscape concerning separation of church and state has changed in Canada in the last twenty years concerning public displays of religious symbols. The city is getting mostly derided in social media, and a common talking point is that they're putting out this claim while, at the very same moment, prominently displaying all sorts of Christmas decorations.
So what has changed? Here is where I have a little bit of insider exposure. I don't have public sources for this, and so I'm not actually even sure of how accurate it is, but it's the story "on the street". Basically, there's not that many Jews in the area, anyway, maybe a couple few hundred, but they've been there for a long time. Part of the community. Part of the culture. On the other hand, the sense was that circa ten years ago, there was almost no Muslim presence whatsoever. I was told that ten years ago, the only mosque in the area was really just a small house that had been repurposed. Since then, massive amounts of immigration from Francophone North Africa. They've come with a predominant religion and, well, different cultural understandings. This is what seems to have changed.
Obviously, the cherry on top of what's changed is October 7. It's tempting to think that that is the only thing that's changed, and even if they didn't have all the immigration in the past several years, the city of Moncton would have made the same choice. However, I can't help but be reminded of the old quote about how you go broke two ways: first, slowly, then second, all at once. It's hard to detangle the two.
EDIT: I realized after posting that I wanted to mention something else that was in my mind, but never figured out how to include it. It's that, culturally, they're bloody Canadians! Their culture is obscenely polite and accepting of others, other cultures, and multiculturalism generally. They're more than happy to let people do all sorts of their own cultural things, and general tolerance skews quite high. They're really of the "we can all get along" mindset. This is one of those things that seems to be cracking as they struggle with new situations that they find themselves in, and seems to me to be one of the reasons why they're so confused about these changes occurring in their own midst.
It's worth pointing out that Canada doesn't have separation of church and state. The constitution recognizes the supremacy of God and the head of state is also the head of the established church. It also guarantees the funding of demoninational schools. We even had a law against blasphemy until 2018.
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Maybe the motive was bad, but the removal of Hanukkah from public celebration makes sense. It’s a minor Jewish holiday, not one of the six mandated festivals in the Torah or one of the high holy days. It commemorates a small middle eastern nation defeating their enemy in war. There’s nothing morally or culturally interesting about it, either for humanity entirely or for Canadians specifically.
On the other hand, Christmas celebrates the birth of a new religion and ethical system, which was so important that it restarted our calendars and indirectly inspired developments like global abolition and the Magna Carta. All of the important founding Canadians were Christian afaik, which means they believed Christmas to be the most important day in human history. It’s poetically and symbolically beautiful even if you think it’s just a fable, and it was a mainstay of Western art and music for 1500+ years.
In addition to AshLael’s correction about Easter, I’ll note that any early Puritan or Presbyterian Canadian settlers would have been decidedly anti-Christmas. I don’t know enough about Canadian history to say how much of an influence they might have had, but I know at least one of the American colonies (Massachusetts) made it illegal to celebrate Christmas at all.
Canada did not have many British colonists until the mid 18th century, long after the time of the Puritans, though many of their descendants came during this period from the United States. It did have a lot of Presbyterians as there were a lot of immigrants from Scotland and Northern Ireland.
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Christmas is not the most important holiday from a religious Christian perspective. Easter is. Jesus' birth matters primarily because it allows for his eventual execution and resurrection.
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Agree that Hanukkah probably isn’t that big a holiday in Kiryas Joel, but I’m of the understanding that mainstream westernized Jews treat it as a very big deal.
also notably the poorest county in the US
Nominally. They were/are actually wealthy as far as quality of life is concerned (highest birth rate in country; their own private security; their own maternity clinic; governors speaking specifically in their town)
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The reason this particular Jewish holiday is by the Christian majority elevated, is that happens during the Christmass season. When a decorated conifer is put up by the state, a litigous Atheist could sue claiming it is a religous symbol, but if Mennorah is placed beside it, neutrality is preserved.
Even in celebrating a Jewish holiday, non-Jewish motives play a role.
Growing up in the '90s, at my primary school we learned roughly equal amounts about Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa come December - despite Hanukkah being at best the third most important Jewish holiday and Kwanzaa not really being an actual thing. In my year we had no Jewish or black kids.
Ironically we did have two Zoroastrians but we never got to learn about their cool religion.
Our local library still does this, despite everyone in the area being Catholic, Protestant, or irreligious. Also, the "Christmas" part of things was super generic, just reindeer and trees, while Hanukkah and Kwanzaa were more specific. I don't think I'll be taking the kids this year, last year they found the only person in town who celebrates Kwanzaa, and she spent a long time talking rather quietly, until the kids were so restless I had to leave. For Hanukkah, they played a dreidel game to win chocolate coins, so that some kids got a ton more treats than others, like they were trying to emphasize things people were most likely to make fun of Jews for.
I would much prefer to do something for Christmas in December, Passover in Spring, and Ramadan/Eid as an interesting roving holiday. Passover is way more interesting, and told by multiple religious traditions. Lacking that, I would rather just have Festivus decorations than fake representation (this is basically what my school district does, with lots of elf stuff, and I'm not really into it, but it does basically make sense as a December religious truce).
Easter is a pretty big deal in Christianity, as in the biggest feast ever to religious christians.
I know. And they're related. If it were up to me, we would celebrate that too. Pascha is the best holiday. But if the library is going to celebrate a Jewish holiday for equity reasons, I would rather it be a good one. Sukkah also seems pretty neat.
DEI isn't about reflecting what's meaningful in other cultures. I'm pretty sure that's cultural appropriation. DEI is about making a token acknowledgement of other cultures while you do something for the mainstream. Hannukah is a perfect example of that; it's not actually a very big deal in Judaism, but it's pretty hard to mistake it for being Christian.
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Same deal here. Someone really wanted Kwanzaa to take off.
My Kwanzaa related education in Southern California consisted of "Kwanzaa is a holiday that happens close to when Christmas does... it celebrates African culture." And that was about it.
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The Jewish insistence to insert their Menorahs on public lands, regardless of how few Jews live in some municipality, has always been Culture War. And unlike the traditional Christmas displays which genuinely are now fully secularized, these Menorah displays are deeply religious in nature. The rationalization is that these Menorahs are symbols of "religious tolerance", but they are not, they are sacred symbols of the Jewish religion and everything it represents, including Zionism.
It is ironic to now see Jews complaining about "selective interpretation" of the law, given that they've enjoyed a state of affairs where Christian holy symbols- crosses and Nativity, are banned on public lands and the Jewish holy symbol is revered on the same. Really, they are complaining about an equalization of the law where only secular symbols are allowed. Yes, that includes the Christmas tree and excludes the Menorah.
Nativity scenes aren’t banned on public land, anyways.
It basically is, there are legal standards that determine when the context is allowed or not allowed. Those standards are explicitly looser for Menorahs. I am saying Menorahs should be held to the same standards as the Nativity or Cross.
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The Menorah is a minor religious symbol and does not hold the same status in Judaism as the cross does in Christianity. The Torah is probably about as important to Jews as the cross is to Christians, and the Torah is not regularly displayed in public spaces.
It's true that Menorahs on public grounds have always been culture war, but I think everything else in your post is gross exaggeration.
I wouldn't kick up about menorahs, it's at least an attempt to find a compatible religious festival for the same time. I more dislike the very secular versions to replace Christmas, but I've learned to tolerate them (at least round where I am, where there isn't really the effort to dislodge Christmas as "it's a religious festival and so offensive!")
Lot better than the stupid Satanist crap. At least the Book of Maccabees has war elephants, which are always cool.
(The Satanists are indeed entitled to put up stupid crap for holidays, like anyone else. But this doesn't even pretend to be anything but a sneer at Christians; it's not even trying to celebrate Sol Invictus or anything similar. I'll take a third-rate but genuine religious memorial over 'ha ha ain't we so clever?' stunts any day).
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The menorah is a more ancient symbol of Judaism than the Star of David. It's the symbol of the Mossad... Saying it is "a minor religious symbol" is not only untrue but doesn't even challenge the point I'm making. It is a religious symbol of Judaism (can you name any symbols more important than the menorah? You say "the Torah" which is a book and not even a symbol per se...) so it doesn't belong on public lands if our laws were fairly interpreted.
Mossad has a menorah on their logo because Israel has a menorah on their emblem/coat of arms.
The real question is, what does the seven branch menorah have to do with Hanukkah?
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I'm trying to challenge your statement:
I don't see how you can argue that a "traditional Christmas display" (such as the angels/trumpets linked in the OP, or the still common nativity scenes) is "fully secularized" while a Menorah is not. My point is that the Menorah has no more significance in Judaism than these symbols have in Christianity, and I'd even argue it is much more minor than something like the nativity.
Christmas is fully integrated as part of the general Civic Religion. Every atheist I know celebrates Christmas with a Christmas tree etc. I agree angels are more debatable, sure ban them too. But a Christmas tree is a symbol of a civic ritual, Christianity will decline but Christmas will continue to grow bigger than ever.
A Menorah has far more religious symbolism than a Christmas tree, which is clearly inspired from Pagan rituals and has no symbolic relation to Christianity at all.
A Christmas tree is genuinely a secular symbol, a menorah is not a secular symbol. The menorah is literally the centerpiece of the official emblem of the State of Israel, it is not secular at all.
Christmas trees came about in the 1500s in the Baltics and are decidedly Lutheran in origin. The notion that Christmas is merely a rebranded pagan holiday (Yule or Saturnalia) is anti-Christian propaganda.
Other than Santa Claus*, Reindeer, and Snowflakes, all major Christmas symbols are directly Christian (decorated Christmas trees, Angels, Star of Bethlehem)
*(and even then Saint Nicholas, is obviously, a link to Christianity)
I think this is bullshit. I've read the arguments, I know what historians think about this and I'm still convinced their arguments are weak.
There is no logical reason you would decorate an evergreen tree to celebrate the birth of the son of god, which happened in a cave and involved no trees at all. The christmas log is an even better example, somehow there's local customs, spread from the uk to turkey relating to a magical chunk of wood. Where does that come from? Turns out, nowhere. It just starts getting mentioned out of nowhere. Same thing with the christmas tree, at some point it just starts existing for no logical reason.
I think there are two explanations, one is that they are pre-christian traditions that survived underground until they re-emerged at some point (it doesn't even have to be that much underground, it just needs to be a topic that wasn't recorded in writing). Or they are new traditions that don't have anything to do with christianity, a sort of repaganization of europe.
It's hard to tell which is the case because the christian middle ages didn't bother keeping a record of pagan european tradition.
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I don't think Christmas is a rebranded pagan holiday that is now Christian, it's a rebranded Christian holiday that is now pagan. The mythos around Santa Claus and Christmas, very little of it has anything to do with Christianity. A Christmas tree holds no religious significance, it marks participation in the dyonisian winter festivities that have always featured in Indo-European civilization with many commonalities. The entire Christmas aesthetic is fundamentally pagan and hyperborean, with the Nativity as the exception. The rest of it is absolutely secular.
Santa Claus is not a saint, he's an immortal pagan god, and a goofy god at that.
I get my mother a Santa Claus figurine each year.
I will be shopping for the "IMMORTAL PAGAN GOD" version this year. Thank you.
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Oh, so it’s a state symbol. Problem solved.
Really, the easiest route here is just to get atheists placing menorahs. Then it will have the “fully integrated” status.
It's a religious symbol embraced as being emblematic, literally, of the Jewish state which is currently engaged in an ethnic cleansing of occupied land. It's not secular. A Christmas tree is secular.
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Something I can speak of when I talk to friends and family about their shifting opinions on immigration is that there's a widespread sentiment that people feel their tolerance and generosity has been abused. Not necessarily by immigrants alone (or more accurately, not by immigrants who aren't international students), but also by federal and provincial governments. Most people I know are small-l liberals and up until a year or two ago were broadly supportive of immigration. Now people are much more skeptical, and think they might have been naïve about the intentions of government/business as well as the attitude of prospective immigrants. The change in opinions has been very rapid and has not necessarily come from people I would have expected. I think the Liberals might have killed the golden goose here by going too hard, too fast.
With respect to francophone immigrants from North Africa, in Canada there's been somewhat of a friction historically between them and middle Eastern Muslims. Maghrebien Canadians tend to be much more hostile to the hijab and other things they view as signs of Arabic cultural dominance within the Muslim world. Maghrebien immigrants broadly supported the Québec's government banning of public employees wearing "religious symbols" (which was effectively targeted specifically at the hijab).
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