Wednesday, December 07, 2005

The war on Chanukah

Somebody has been circulating this around the internet. It's supposed to be cute. But I think it goes too far. Judge for yourself:

There are many misconceptions about the differences between Christmas and Chanukah. This should clear them up!


1. Christmas is one day, same day, every year: December 25th. Jews also love December 25th. It's another paid day off work. We go to the movies and eat babies.

2. Chanukah is eight days. It starts the evening of the 24th of Kislev, whenever that is. No one is ever sure. Jews never know until a non-Jew asks when Chanukah starts, forcing us to consult a calendar so we don't look like idiots. We all have the same calendar, provided free with a donation from the Elders of Zion, the kosher butcher, or the local Jewish funeral home.

3. Christmas is a major holiday. Chanukah is a minor holiday with the same theme as most Jewish holidays. They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat their children and sharpen our horns

4. Christians get wonderful presents such as jewelry, perfume, stereos. Jews sell them.

5. There is only one way to spell Christmas. It includes the word Christ, who was some Jewish guy, and the word mas, which is not a word. Well...I guess it could stand for MASS. (For the Jews out there, these aren't religious terms. They're holiday terms. (And the fact that holiday includes the word holi has nothing to do with holy. Stop making connections that aren't there, asshole!)) No one can decide how to spell Chanukah, Chanukkah, Chanukka, Channukah, Hanukah, Hannukah, etc.

6. Christmas is at time of great pressure for husbands and boyfriends. Their partners expect special gifts. Jewish men are relieved of that burden. No one expects a diamond ring on Chanukah. Especially from a Jew.

7. Christmas brings enormous electric bills. Candles are used for Chanukah. Not only are we spared enormous electric bills, but we get to feel good about not contributing to the energy crisis. It harder to see how ugly we are to one another. We take off our skin at night. Freud was such a pervert because all Jews are sexual deviants. Plus why the hell do you think we have such a powerful Israeli lobbying force in Washington? For religious freedom? Fuck no, Jerk! Oil for our Chanukah candles!

8. Christmas carols are beautiful? Silent Night, Come All Ye Faithful. Chanukah songs are stupid. They are demeaning. They are about stupid dreidels made from stupid clay or having a stupid party and dancing the stupid horah or whatever the fuck it’s called... Of course, we are secretly pleased that many of the beautiful carols were composed and written by Jews. And don't Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond sing them beautifully? No. Your religion is more evil than ours.

9. A home preparing for Christmas smells wonderful. The sweet smell of cookies and cakes baking. Happy people gather around in festive moods. A home preparing for Chanukah smells of oil, potatoes, and onions. The home, as always, is full of loud people all talking at once. That's because we are selfish, rude, filthy and paranoid.

10. Women have fun baking Christmas cookies. Jewish women burn their eyes and cut their hands grating potatoes and onions for latkes. Sadomasochistic sex was invented by Jewish women to take their minds off the holidays.

11. Parents deliver to their children on Christmas. Jewish parents have no qualms about withholding a gift on any of the eight nights because Jews are stingy. Filth.

12. The players in the Christmas story have easy to pronounce names such as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. The players in the Chanukah story are Antiochus, Judah Maccabee, and Matta whatever. No one can spell it or pronounce it. On the plus side, we can tell our gentile friends anything and they believe we are wonderfully versed in our history. When in truth we perpetuate nothing but paranoia.

13. Many Christians believe in the virgin birth. Jews think "Joseph, Bubela, snap out of it. Your woman is pregnant, you didn't sleep with her, and now you want to blame God. Here, eat a Palestinian baby."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can always count on you to demystify things for me.

sarcasmus said...

I've only recently been appreciating your err links. That is to say, appreciating that you are linking to interesting things that I should take a look at. I shall have to a special post on them one of these days. This blog has been feeling especially dialectical, as opposed to public, as of late. I think those are the correct terms. Are they not? I think so. Probably.

EVerybody else, click on Err's name. He links to interesting things. That's as close as we'll get to having an errrr blog.

sarcasmus said...

Okay. So I'll fess up. I didn't "find" this. I found it, but then I added horrible horrible things to it. I hate these cutesy things that people email to each other. I don't hate Jews. I'm a Jew. Anyone who calls someone a self-hater is a bigot. Self-hating is a natural tendency.

But I hate stereotypes. Even positive ones. So I like to jiggle things around in my angry and sloppy fashion.

I had to write this after reading the thing about Twain. Twain had a positive view of Jews. But having a view on Jews at all is pretty rotten. We are just people.

Besides, fuck that. I'm an Iceberg, a whole different thing. Maybe that makes me anti-semitic.

You see how hard it is to be a Jew?

No more difficult than being any other type of human being, I don't think.

Peace, my children. We will be calm, at peace, dead in due time.