No Santa at school

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by Julia Sallo (letters@boulderweekly.com)

Even though I'm Jewish, I love Christmas. My mom was raised Christian, and although we keep a Jewish home, she didn't want to give up Christmas. What I love is spending the day with my family, enjoying all of our annual traditions, eating way too much, and seeing my living room floor covered in perfectly wrapped gifts. For me, the day is about family.

But there are plenty of things I don't love about the holiday—the ostentatious Christmas lights with little nativity scenes or the carolers at my door who sing about Jesus Christ and then shout, "Merry Christmas." Even though I celebrate Christmas, the references to Jesus being slapped in my face make me feel uncomfortable. The carolers aren't trying to offend anyone, because they're usually little kids, and the lawn display is on private property. But any public place should stick with snowflakes and white lights.

Public schools should use extreme caution when the holiday season rolls around. Not only are schools public property, but they are designed for the purpose of educating easily influenced children. Everyone should realize that time off from school in the winter should be called "winter break" instead of "Christmas break," and children shouldn't be making Santa hats or nativity scenes in art class. Winter choir concerts are another hot spot for holiday inequality.

Alex Grossman, a Jewish junior at Fairview High School, felt uncomfortable as a child singing Christmas songs. "I always hated it in elementary school because they would make us go into the gym and sing Christmas songs with maybe 'Driedel, Driedel.' I hated it, so I sat in the back and didn't sing."

Having one token Hanukkah song doesn't make up for the fact that all the children have been singing songs about Old Saint Nick and Jesus. Janet Joyce, the Jewish mother of two daughters, finds the Hanukkah song not only out of place, but insulting. It should just be called a Christmas concert.

At Fairview, the attendance office is decorated in full "Christmas spirit" every December with mistletoe, Santa figurines and a mind-blowing dose of red and green. For Jewish students in the school, even those, like me, who celebrate Christmas in a secular way, this display is offensive. The secretaries don't even bother with a token menorah like "Driedel Driedel" at the choir concerts.

Fairview is not a Christian school, so there is no place for an undoubtedly Christian message with the use of these decorations. Any non-Christian teenager at Fairview, already trying to fit in, will feel uncomfortable to find himself in Santa's workshop, formerly the school attendance office.

In English class recently, we have been reading essays by Thoreau, Emerson and de Toqueville, and the question of religious majority arose. A girl in my class raised her hand to state that because 80 percent of Americans are Christians, it is a Christian nation. I found this comment hurtful as a Jewish student sitting right next to her. When I expressed this, another student said, "Well, it's not like you're ever made fun of for being Jewish."

Actually, a large amount of anti-Semitism exists within public schools, some of it construed as humor. People will joke around and say that they can't tell me something because I'm Jewish. Or another person will say, "Go away, you're Jewish" to my Jewish friends.

Any member of a majority has a responsibility to protect the minority. At Fairview, the majority of kids are white. But that doesn't mean that we are going to make black students go behind us in the lunch line or sit in the back of the school bus. In fact, I'd say that all white students at Fairview have a responsibility to make all black students feel comfortable. We are trying to protect the minority.

Ostentatiously decorating Fairview for Christmas is like allowing white kids to have priority on school buses or in the lunch line. It makes anyone who is not Christian feel uncomfortable and out of place in a sea of Christmas-celebrating students.

The solution is not to put menorahs and Stars of David in the school office, as well. That is no better than the one Hanukkah song in a Christmas concert. The only solution is to make all "holiday" decorations non-religious. Let's stick with snowflakes and white lights. Then we won't be making children of other religions—or no religion—feel like second-class students.

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