So, I’ve seen a lot of fanfics about Tina and Queenie Goldstein celebrating Christmas. I’ve also heard that people are using Christian theology in their tributes to Carrie Fisher. When called out, people do a few things; claim that they just wanted to write a nice fic or tribute and didn’t mean to erase the person’s Jewishness, state that the character or person wasn’t really Jewish because they weren’t that religious, or state that religion shouldn’t be considered important.
So let’s talk about this. What’s going on here is Christianormativity. This refers to the fact that those of us in the US live in a society based on Christianity. This doesn’t mean that everyone believes in Jesus; it means that mores and customs are based in Christianity, and that people’s idea of what “religion” is is based in Christianity. It manifests in people having Jewish characters celebrate Christmas because to them, Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday, it’s just a holiday. Everyone celebrates it, right? And using Christian theology to publicly mourn isn’t Christian mourning, it’s just mourning, right?
To understand why Jews see it differently, we need to understand the difference between Christianity and Judaism.
According to Christianity, a person is Christian if they accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. As far as I understand it, if someone ceases to believe this, then they are no longer Christian, no matter how they were raised or what holidays they celebrate. They now are just a regular, non-religious person. Since you can stop being Christian and still celebrate Christmas, that makes Christmas not a Christian holiday, right?
If we define religion based on Christianity, the definition of a religion is “a set of metaphysical beliefs about the world” and an adherent of a religion is “someone who believes those beliefs.” Christians look at the world and see many other religions: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism… and say “okay, I understand this, those are different sets of beliefs that people have.”
But the thing is, that definition of religion is one of the beliefs of Christianity. People from different religions don’t define their religion that way.
Judaism/Jewishness is an ethnoreligion. Being Jewish involves heritage more than anything, and culture second to that. Religion is inextricably tied in, as I’ll discuss, notably in that conversion to Judaism is a religious process that confers virtual Jewish heritage on the convert. Judaism is a religion in the sense that it is a set of beliefs and practices, but Jewishness is about heritage and culture.
Confusing? Okay, let’s break it down a bit more. Jews, before anything else, were a tribe. We were a tribe with a religion, and our tribal narrative is inextricably tied to that religion. Anyone part of that tribe is Jewish. And not everyone in that tribe chooses to practice religion. Judaism – the religion – believes that everyone in the tribe should practice the religion, but even if someone doesn’t, they’re still Jewish. It’s kind of like how your mom wants you to do your work, get exercise, and go to sleep early, but you’re still her kid even if you don’t do those things.
But it’s still not even that simple. For one thing, the definitions of terms I’ve given aren’t clear-cut or universally accepted: A practitioner of Judaism could accurately describe themself as Jewish. Another is that whether someone is a practitioner of Judaism isn’t clear-cut either. The first thing to know is that, as the word “practitioner” should imply, whether you are one depends on what you do rather than what you believe. Which isn’t to say that Judaism doesn’t have a belief system, but again, you can still practice Judaism without that. It’s sort of like how you can do your homework even if you don’t accept the views your professor is teaching. And even with that, there is a pretty wide range of theological belief that can fit into the Jewish system if you’re clever (I once managed to pray the evening prayers, which talk pretty explicitly about an omniscient, personified God, while interpreting them to be about an abstract Force-like God, convincingly enough that I had a legit spiritual experience.)
But it’s… still more complicated! Because Jewish practice isn’t a simple binary, 0 or 1 (unless you’re a Jewish robot, but I think that’s beyond the scope of this post). You can participate in some practices, but not others. You can participate constantly throughout the day, or once a week, or once a year. You can do something by yourself in your house or publicly at a synagogue. Also, Jewish culture is inextricably tied to religion. So you can choose to participate only in the culture, but if you celebrate the holidays, you’ll be engaging in practices that, according to Judaism the religion, have religious meaning – even if the religious part is not what it’s about for you.
So, what does all this mean about Christianity and Christmas? It means that according to Judaism, there is no such thing as a non-religious holiday, no matter how many non-religious people celebrate it. Beyond that, Christianormativity means that Christians see their own holidays as universal, and everyone else’s holidays as Other. But to someone who is Jewish, it’s the opposite! Our own holidays are familiar to us. Christmas comes from Christian culture, and to many of us it is fundamentally foreign and Other. We have a taboo against celebrating it, because of what it represents – assimilation into the majority culture and giving up our own. That perception is changing now, but it is still very present for many of us.
And it means that from our perspective, non-religious people with Christian heritage who celebrate Christian holidays are Christian. We don’t mean they’re religious, we mean they’re secular Christians. Wait, what? But that makes no sense! “Secular Christian” is an oxymoron! Well, yes, intellectually I know that. Which is why I’ve avoided the term and instead referred to “people with Christian heritage who celebrate Christian holidays.” There’s no term for these people because to most Americans, they don’t need a name, because they’re Just Regular People. And in that vain, secular Jews are Just Regular People too, right? Well… many do see themselves that way, after decades of living in a Christianormative culture. But many don’t. Many see themselves as Jewish.
Basically, because of the info I mentioned before, a person can be a Jewish atheist or a Jewish agnostic. And because of the different ways Christianity defines itself and Judaism defines itself, saying “she wasn’t Jewish, she was agnostic” is just as nonsensical – and just as culturally ignorant – as saying “secular Christian.”
So. Tina and Queenie Goldstein do not have a Christmas tree and they do not host Christmas dinner.
And Carrie Fisher, may her memory be for a blessing, was an amazing agnostic Jewish mentally ill activist feminist strong beatiful Space Mom who drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.
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