Chanukah is a great holiday for kids. Games, fried foods, lighting candles— add in the Americanization of the holiday with gifts, and it’s an easy favorite.

Plus, there’s the simple narrative of the holiday— the dual miracles of the impossible war, and the oil that burned for eight days. But there’s lots we don’t bother to tell kids about the holiday, that, I have learned, really piques their attention. Use your best judgment— don’t tell a kindergartener about a man being crushed to death, for example. And some of the fascinating geopolitics might be a bit sophisticated for even the most precocious of tykes. But here are some great ways to make a Jewish child question their entire holiday experience up to this point:

1. The story really starts with Alexander the Great.

OK, you do need a kid nerdy enough to appreciate the historical connection, but if they’re Jewish, the odds aren’t necessarily against you. The villain of our story after all, Antiochus, was really Antiochus the IV. The kids almost certainly won’t know how the Seleucids came to be in possession of ancient Judea— when Alexander’s generals divided up their late leader’s empire like it was a giant cake.

2. Judah the Maccabee died during the War. In fact, most of the brothers died.

Our heroes are the sons of the priest Mattathias, especially the middle of the five— Judah. What we don’t bother to tell kids is that Judah didn’t live to see the end of the war, after walking into a bloodbath rather retreating. Watch their eyes grow wide as you break it to them. And he was far from the only core member of the gang to die, which brings us to:

3. One word: Eleazer.

Judah’s brother Eleazar had a notoriously sticky end. In battle, the Syrian-Greeks brought out elephants, because if you had an elephant, wouldn’t you? Anyway, Eleazar charged the elephant, spearing it in the stomach. What happened next in retrospect was sort of obvious; the dying elephant fell up Eleazar, killing him.

The best part? The Jews didn’t even win that battle.

4. The post-victory government imploded pretty much immediately.

We tell kids proudly how the Maccabees won the day and ejected Seleucid rule. We usually end the story right there. Admit to the child in your life that attempts to create a stable government in the aftermath of the war lasted like 70 years and then collapsed in a heap when the corrupt monarchy ended in everyone assassinating one another like it was Game of Thrones. (Why is a kid watching Game of Thrones!?) Don’t worry kids, you still get gelt.

5. Chanukah is pretty much Sukkot.

Listen, you don’t need to tell a kid that the miracle of the oil “may not have happened,” unless you want to have a huge conversation about the evolution of Judaism and the way we create and then codify faith-based narratives. But you can also gently point out that Chanukah is the same length as Sukkot— the Maccabees were fighting so long and hard for the Temple that they had to put off the High Holy Day’s celebration until the winter. What will they do with this information? That’s up to their tiny little minds.

6. Giving Chanukah presents is only because of Christmas envy.

Sorry, kids. We know you want to insist to your gentile friends that Chanukah is just as good as Christmas, but the presents you so covet are because your great-grandparent immigrants saw the Macy’s holiday windows one too many times and snapped. Back in the old country, you would get a kopek and a potato, and be grateful.

And so, blow a child’s mind this holiday season! Let us know how it goes, and you’re welcome.

Image: Gustave Doré’s “The Death of Eleazar” via Wikimedia.

The post How to Blow a Kid’s Mind About Chanukah appeared first on Jewcy.

Dear Rabbi Rosenblatt,

I happened to have read your letter of “advice” to Sarah Silverman, well, because you chose to publish it in an open forum. But that’s cool—who doesn’t enjoy personally directed, insulting missives under the guise of “concern” on the Internet? I can’t wait for the day when my therapist publishes his notes on our sessions because he’s so worried about me.

I usually don’t intrude in private matters between self-righteous rabbis and Jewish comedians, but since you used the English language and my chosen medium, writing, I felt compelled to respond. If you had done a piece of performance art or tapped this message out in Morse code, I would’ve been less offended. Instead I would’ve thought, hey, that’s cool but I don’t get it. I really don’t understand most performance art because I’m too lowbrow and unsophisticated.

Before I go any further, I need to establish our Jewish bona fides, which will then permit me to openly insult you. Your name is Rosenblatt. My name is Meyers. Maybe we know some people in common? No? Well then, try Yudkovitch. My dad changed his last name so I’m not actually related to any Meyers.’ Do you know any Yudkovitches? Still no? Well, I tried. I’m sure if we keep at this longer, we’d come up with at least one person.

Now let’s get down to the “crude” and “vulgar,” and worst of all, “political.” You have a problem with women like Silverman, who uses her fame and platform to advocate for causes she believes in when she should really just get married already. I mean, if you have kids, why would you care that minorities are being illegally disenfranchised and having their civil rights stripped away? Because—look at the cute drawing Yaakov just made! My kid’s smile melts away all of the injustices of the world and makes them unimportant!

Wait, what?

But Rabbi, here’s where you’re mistaken. Politics and motherhood are not really that different. In fact, being politically engaged is pretty similar to being a parent if you think about it for a moment.

Politics can keep you up at night (especially if you have a fever dream contemplating a Paul Ryan vice presidency). It can make you angry. It will inevitably disappoint you. It can even waste your money and crash your “car”—if the “car” in question is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our foreign policy. Even totaling your Prius (wait, that car is too “political,” make it an Escalade instead) won’t run up as big a tab as a land invasion of a sovereign Middle Eastern country.

And, like a fetus, politics can even get up into your lady business. Just look at the last twelve months of Republican sponsored legislation across this country. (Tranvaginal ultrasound anyone?) I feel less alone already!

True, politics may never bring you breakfast in bed, but eating in bed is gross. Think of the sheets!

I guess you can probably tell from my tone and snark and my disdain for breakfasts served on my bed sheets by well-intentioned kids that I’m not a mother. Yes, my uterus has been vacant for almost 30 years and I’m cool with that. Maybe one day I’ll have kids (I’m actually open to it), but I’ve never been the type of woman who fantasized about her wedding or the expensive preschools I would send my toddlers to. I don’t look at tiny outfits and coo. Usually, I’m filled with self-loathing that there are little kids out there dressed more fashionably than I am.

Of course, let us not forget that your diatribe was not only offensive to women like Silverman, who are child-free by choice. It also signals to women who are unable to have children that they are less than, that they can’t possibly find happiness since they are not fulfilling their womanly destiny. Undoubtedly, you’ll counter that you didn’t mean these women, who are so unlucky as to be unable to have children. Because they would choose to have kids if they could do so.

Once again, the debate hinges on choice. A woman choosing to remain childless is what is actually galling to you. There aren’t a lot of us left and for men like you, an empty Jewish uterus is a crime. Filling them up with offspring is absolutely imperative. Wasn’t that the gist of Herbert Hoover’s 1928 presidential campaign slogan? A chicken in every pot. A car in every driveway. A baby in every uterus.

Anyway, I don’t want to end this on a sour note. We’re both Jews and we’ll have to hug it out at the next tribal council. And you were magnanimous enough to end your letter to Silverman with a blessing that all of the things she doesn’t wish for herself—marriage and children—happen anyway. The very height of charity! So Rabbi, I’ll do the same for you. May you be zocheh to live many, many more years to see the continued march of feminism and more women like Silverman who use public platforms to fight for what they believe in, regardless of whether or not they’ve chosen to procreate.

Sincerely,

Dvora Meyers

P.S. I would’ve written “love” in the signoff, but I was afraid that you would misconstrue that as a sign of my emptiness, of how I’m desperate to be loved because I’m not married and don’t have children. I know how much you rabbis enjoy textual analysis.

(Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images)

The post It’s a Free Country, Baby: In Defense of Sarah Silverman’s Choices appeared first on Jewcy.