Inflatable dinosaurs and Maccabees
Thinking about Chanukah in the context of fear and remembrance.
This is the culmination of a week of small cues that came together for me while walking the dog late on Friday evening. It was nearly midnight, and we were the only ones on the street. The dog was busy, scanning fences for signs of other dogs having been there when we came upon a yard filled to the brim with inflatable Christmas decorations. As I stood there looking at them a thought crossed my mind, and it opened the floodgates.
Several days earlier, I had sent my fiancé an Instagram ad for an inflatable Chanukah dinosaur on Modern Tribe, telling him I needed it. It didn’t click for me until I was standing there in the dark, that the ad, which included a video of children playing with the dinosaur, showed the inflatable in an unusual location. In the ad, the dinosaur was inside a house. While the listing on the Modern Tribe website for the dinosaur does show it both indoors and outdoors, the Instagram post did not. I had not registered at the time how extraordinarily strange it was to advertise a lighted, inflatable decoration inside a house. That’s not where people put those giant blow-up snowmen and Santas. But it is where Jews in the Diaspora put Chanukah decorations, which is probably why it took so long to register with me that it isn't where inflatable dinosaurs are supposed to go.
Walking back to the house, I thought about how when I was in Hebrew school, they taught us that the Chanukah menorah, the eight-branch candelabra we light during the festival, is supposed to go in the window of your home. We had always lit our menorah on the dining room table, and when I asked my mom at the time why we didn’t put the menorah in the window, she told me it was because it was too dangerous. I asked her about that memory recently and she told me that it probably is what she said, because you just never know when identifying yourself as Jewish is going to be dangerous. A similar conversation took place between my fiancé and me about putting up a mezuzah in a small town with no organized Jewish community. While the mezuzah is firmly attached to the doorway, the concern that it made the house a target is hard to dispel as entirely irrational.
Chanukah is an interesting time to think about the things that make us afraid to be outwardly Jewish.
As many others have explained so well, Chanukah is not “Jewish Christmas.” It's a minor holiday, from a religious standpoint, that has an elevated level of awareness around it because of its proximity to Christmas. I'm not going to turn down latkes or sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), but in recent years Chanukah has become much more about reinforcing the centrality of Jewish indigeneity to Israel and the importance of resisting assimilation than anything else. This is because despite playing dreidel, eating the ultimate comfort foods, and exchanging gifts, Chanukah can be better understood as a sort of remembrance day.
The purpose of lighting the menorah for eight days is to commemorate how after the Maccabees rose up against the oppression of Greek rule, they found, among the wreckage, that they only had enough oil to keep the eternal flame in the temple lamp burning for one day, and by a miracle, it lasted for eight days. We can debate whether we are or are not commemorating being bad at math, but I would argue that the miracle of the oil isn't the thrust of what we are celebrating during Chanukah at all. What we are really doing is commemorating acts of bravery against an oppressive regime; we are recognizing the need to defend your rights to live freely and practice your customs and beliefs.
Putting a menorah in the window is, in itself, an act of resistance. This is something I am reminded of each year when the iconic photo from 1931 Germany of a menorah in a window with a Nazi flag in the background circulates on Facebook.
Displaying openly for passersby to see that this window belongs to a Jewish home has so frequently throughout history been an act of bravery. That is the first thing that comes to mind each year when I see that image of the menorah from 1931. I don’t think that it’s foolish or dangerous, though it may well have been both, but that it was incredibly brave.
I've been thinking a lot about that inflatable dinosaur. Probably too much. I've been thinking about how long it took me to realize that if it had been an inflatable Christmas decoration, the ad would only have shown it being used in a front yard and not a living room. It wouldn’t have assumed people needed the option not to put it outside. While putting up lights on your home is by and large not part of Jewish winter holiday traditions, I'd like to think that if I ever do get that dinosaur, and I wanted to put it in my front yard, I could do so without thinking twice, like all those Santas, but I’m not always sure that’s true. There is still so much work to be done before we can guarantee safety.
Chanukah is a time to commemorate the bravery of the Maccabees to stand up against oppression under Greek control of Israel. Acts of bravery don’t all require going to battle. They don’t even require putting an inflatable dinosaur on your lawn. Lighting a menorah is an act of bravery and a reminder of how lucky we are and how hard we have and continue to fight to live freely and safely as Jews.
Happy Chanukah! If you are reading this and you do actually have that dinosaur or some other amazing Chanukah decorations (dinosaur themed or not), comment below or sent me a picture @sadie_rw on Twitter or @horseofadifferent_colour on Instagram. Regardless of whether, please consider subscribing for free. I am only 12 subscriptions away from my 2022 goal and would love to get there before we roll over into 2023!