I rise to protest. There has been a most lamentable failure on the part of readers to talk back. More than once I have launched a column with a splash in the hope of a storm. But instantly it steadied and sailed serenely into oblivion.
A #terall, controversy is the life – blood of a column. Its captain thrives and grows fat on disputation. Anxiously he peruses his morning’s mail in the hope of a good thick argument, something that will fill the allotted space for the following day.
And when the mail reveals nothing but rave correspondence and bills, his face falls. The bills, at least, serve as a source of inspiration by making him sufficiently angry or sufficiently alarmed to rush to the typewriter. But what can he do with the compliments? If he published them the cynical, callous public will only suppose he wrote them himself or at best fixed it up with relatives.
A juicy argument is another matter altogether. By publishing it he accomplishes a twofold purpose. Not only does he save himself a day’s work, but he demonstrates the breadth of his mind.
The disinclination of readers to challenge my statements and implications place me face to face with any of three alternatives, all of them equally distressing:
1—That my views and prejudices as aired in type coincide exactly with the views and prejudices of the readers—which would be a miracle.
2—That said readers are a meek and long-suffering lot who cannot be goaded into a fight—which would be a tragedy.
3—That the column has no readers—which—but that is an alternative I cannot bring myself to contemplate.
Here, however, is a theme made to the sweet measure of controversy. If readers do not rise to argue it out, then words have no power to get a rise out of them. And it is a timely theme.
I pose the questions for all and sundry:
Should a Jew celebrate the Gentile Christmas and the Gentile New Year? Should he accept (let alone give) Christmas presents? Shall an evergreen decked in spangles and hoar-frost blossom on his hearth? Is he justified in sending New Year’s cards and Christmas greetings? Shall he acknowledge Santa Claus or permit the hopeful habitual stockings to remain empty?
Personally I am inclined to celebrate these pagan rites in modest measure, since they represent to me no more than a pause in the routine of the calendar, without the remotest tinge of sanctity.
Any excuse for a holiday, it seems to me, is a good excuse. In Teheran, Persia, about two years ago, I joined in a Mohammedan festival without the slightest feeling of disloyalty to Judaism. In Moscow I celebrated the Gentile New Year’s twice each year, at thirteen days’ distance from one another: the one on January 1 and the other thirteen days thereafter, when January 1 would have fallen under the old Greek Orthodox calendar. The vodka and the zakuski
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
