Chanukah message from Birmingham, Alabama Jewish-pride, Dixie-style
As antisemitic incidents increase, some people, as a precaution, did not place menorahs in their windows, lest they become a target. On campus, Jewish students often hide their identity lest they incur the wrath of “anti-Zionist not antisemitic” professors and thus become subject to more critical grading pens.
Not only is there a menorah in the window of our home in Birmingham, Alabama, there is a 14-foot by 20-foot menorah on the front of the house, made from 3,000 blue and white lights.
We’ve been doing this for about 15 years at our Chanukah House — adding to the display each year, including a seven-foot spinning dreidel, a total of about 10,000 lights and Birmingham’s symbol, Vulcan (a cast iron statue of the Roman god of the forge, ironically), holding a menorah.
This year we added a faux state historical marker.
The display is unusual, but, after all, Chanukah is the festival of lights.
For a decade, we have been a stop on Birmingham’s Wacky Tacky Holiday Lights Tour, which benefits Fresh Air Family, providing scholarships to its science-based Gross Out Camp for kids, including those who have escaped violence or are suicide orphans.
Each of the four nights, eight to 10 buses come by to see the Chanukah lights, and I give a quick shpiel about Chanukah while passing out chocolate gelt.
I’ll explain what a sufganiyah is, because of the Krispy Kreme-style “Hot Sufganiyot Now” sign. I’ll joke about needing some guy on the roof just like other houses in the area have, then point to our fiddler by the chimney who’s surrounded with crimson (this is Alabama, after all, home of Crimson Tide football).
Chanukah was the first war for religious freedom, I will tell them. It was a fight for our right to be ourselves rather than emulate the larger culture. After a pause, I’ll admit I’m saying that with thousands of lights in our yard. It’s a way to poke fun at assimilation.
I’ll even mention that, without the events of Chanukah in 165 BCE, certain events in Bethlehem that non-Jews celebrate could not have happened.
Now, I’m not naive. There was an arson attempt outside my congregation recently, though all indications are that it was the random act of a firebug and not antisemitic. Last year, someone stole the tall chanukiah from outside Chabad of Huntsville.
There’s always a chance that something could happen. But we can’t let the haters win.
What did Rabbi Moshe Cohen do after the theft in Huntsville? He ordered more chanukiot and placed them in several locations around the area.
After the arson attempt, the state director for Christians United for Israel activated her prayer chains in a show of support. When something negative happens, we’ve seen that kind of support from our neighbors routinely. When the rash of bomb threats against JCCs happened in 2017, a group of evangelical churches raised $111,000 to help pay for the security needs of our JCC.
That’s Trump’s America. That’s Biden’s America. That’s just plain America. And that’s where our focus should be.
Our Chanukah display is visible in the community. When my press credentials were being checked at one of the World Games venues this summer, the guy said, “You’re the Chanukah house!” That happens very frequently.
It is incredible to walk on to one of the Wacky Tacky buses and be greeted by a group of third-grade girls, decked out in their Christmas outfits and reindeer headbands, singing the “Dreidel Song” to me. Or getting on a bus to the chants of “Chanukah! Chanukah!” or listening to a group of inebriated twentysomethings sing Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song” (I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’m not a fan of Sandler).
In 10 years, there has been just one time when I sensed someone was heading down a bad road with his question, and I deflected it.
We’ve had people say the Chanukah House is their favorite stop on the tour (it must be the chocolate), we’ve had couples talk about it being part of their first date.
Thousands have seen the Chanukah House on Wacky Tacky, and perhaps a few dozen have been Jewish. Countless more have stumbled on it or heard about it from a friend. That’s thousands of people having a great experience in a Jewish context, and many of them may not really know anyone Jewish.
This is not even to mention being told by people in the Jewish community that their kids like seeing themselves represented.
Chanukah is about bringing light to the world. We can’t do that behind drawn curtains.
At a time when there is so much misunderstanding and misperception, being visible and accessible is how we build understanding. Standing up and showing our pride is how we gain respect.
Turn the so-called December Dilemma into a December opportunity. And you don’t even need to become the power company’s best friend to do so.
Show up and show out, and after Chanukah, find ways to keep doing it.
Haters gonna hate. We can’t let them dictate.
Larry Brook is editor of Southern Jewish Life, the deep south’s Jewish magazine, and Israel InSight, a magazine for Israel’s Christian friends.
