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December 3, 2004
Chanukah captivates imagination
The "us" were the ones who didn't get to celebrate Christmas
and the "them" were the lucky people who did.
SHARON MELNICER
"Fingold Smells" (sung to the tune of "Jingle Bells"):
"Fingold smells, Fingold smells, Fingold smells all day / Oh
what fun to aim and run while he looks the other way, hey / Scoop
the snow, make a ball, full of spit and ice / Fingold's head will
roll like lead and flatten all the lice."
Nasty words set to music by taunting children to irritate and insult
Mr. Fingold, a reclusive and eccentric neighbor. His quirky, unpredictable
behavior made every child on the block afraid of him. Not that he
ever hurt us, or even spoke to us directly. But Old Man Fingold
was my childhood bain. My bogey-man under the bed. And so, like
the other kids, I was unkind to him in that uniquely cruel way children
possess, later to regret it, as I became mature enough to measure
the depth of my spite.
Actually, he was a pathetic creature, a grumpy, old man who angrily
talked aloud to himself while hunkering around in the shadows of
his dark, overgrown yard where the grass had long been overrun by
thistles and foxtails. Winter was kinder to the Fingold property,
allowing it to look pristine and manicured under the undulating
drifts of diamond-flecked snow. During this season, neighbors found
it less of an eyesore.
Burrows Avenue, east of Main Street and adjacent to the Red River
in Winnipeg's North End, was an elegant, little block during the
1940s, a wide, sweeping boulevard with giant elms that arched majestically
overhead. Beginning in mid- November, strings of Christmas lights
transformed the tiny enclave into a wonderland. Lights of crimson,
sapphire, emerald and gold outlined the peaks and roofs of the two-storey
houses and made the verandas look like sleighs. Life-sized Santas
were erected in front yards, a crèche of Baby Jesus and Mother
Mary with the three wise men looking on, appeared atop the snow-dusted
pedestal of the birdbath next door.
At school, my Grade 2 teacher was pulling out the dog-eared bundles
of Christmas carol songsheets, provided free to all the public schools,
compliments of the T. Eaton Co. Choirs were organized according
to grade and, by the first week of December, we were all singing
the carols without even looking at the words. However, they were
not always the correct words; more often, they were the misheard
words that sounded perfect to our seven-year-old ears. Phrases like
"We three kings of porridge and tar" or our favorite,
"He's makin' a list, chicken and rice."
As Christmas drew near and, with it, the school "Xmas Concert"
and the holidays, the excitement increased. Christmas parties in
every classroom were planned and tiny, inexpensive gifts, not to
cost more than 25 cents, were bought at Woolworth's, then wrapped
for the classmate whose name you had drawn. All the gifts were arranged
under the classroom tree that we had helped decorate the week before.
But why wasn't a Christmas tree also being put up at home? Why wasn't
my mother baking cookies with sugary designs of santas and snowmen
on them? Why wasn't my father putting up strings of sparkling lights
on our house? Why did my Baba wag her finger in my face and tell
me "metournischt" when I sang "Away in a Manger"
in my best, most expressive choir voice?
That's when I learned the first fact that altered my life forever.
I found out that ... I was Jewish!
"What's Jewish? And so what, anyway?" I naively queried
my mother. "What does that have to do with the best, most beautiful,
important holiday in the whole year?"
"Jewish people don't believe in Jesus. We don't celebrate Christmas
because that is Jesus' birthday," Mom explained.
"Well, what do we celebrate then?" I asked.
Here came the second fact to inextricably alter my life: Jewish
people celebrated something unpronounceable called Chanukah. The
word sounded like a sneeze.
Apart from an eight-holed candelabra with an extra hole in the middle
and a few traditional coins doled out to the children on each of
the eight days that Chanukah was celebrated, that was pretty much
it. Oh sure, there were a few special, holiday toys like the wooden
top, the dreidel, that had Hebrew letters engraved on it, but, frankly,
it didn't spin very well. It just clunked around and then fell over.
Then there was the single Chanukah song that everybody seemed to
know, about, guess what? Spinning a dreidel! We had a couple of
Chanukah foods that were supposed to be special for the holiday
but my grandmother made latkes every Friday night for Shabbos supper
anyway. So what was the big deal?
And that's when my tires went flat!
I might sing Christmas carols, decorate the Christmas tree, exchange
a Christmas gift with a classmate, or even munch on a Santa Claus
cookie, but it was all just a sham. Just as I had become a true
devotee of the "holiday season," the rug was pulled out
from under me. Didn't my family understand that I loved everything
about Christmas and, in comparison, Chanukah was coming off like
the poor runner-up?
But wait! Worse news was to follow. It casually spilled out of my
mother's mouth as though it were no more than a curious question.
Oh, by the way, did I realize that Mr. Fingold across the street
was Jewish, too? Like us? Was she kidding?
Nothing could have been worse in my child's view of the world. There
existed a clear demarcation between "us and them." It
was simple and absolute. The "us" were the ones who didn't
get to celebrate Christmas and the "them" were the lucky
people who did. Like nice Mrs. Carruthers, the English warbride
who lived next door and smilingly invited all of us kids on the
block in for frothy cups of eggnog and warm gingerbread. In contrast,
there was crazy Mr. Fingold. The "us"! Since children
live in a world of stereotypes (it helps to order the confusing
mass of never-ending details), this meant that I was an "us"
too.
The equation easily followed in my unsophisticated mind: it was
Mr. Fingold's fault that Jewish people didn't get to have Christmas.
Why? Because he was mean and spooky, and mean, spooky people don't
deserve Christmas.
Sensing my abysmal letdown, and not wanting me to feel Chanukah
was second best, my parents felt it was time to "pitch"
the holiday. My mother bought me an illustrated book that explained
Chanukah and how it got started. We went shopping for a chanukiyah.
I got to pick out the candles, and light them, too. We sent out
"Happy Chanukah" cards to our friends and family. I got
to lick the stamps!
Their campaign to promote, and acquaint me with, the "miracle
of lights" captivated my imagination. A thimbleful of oil burned
for eight whole days and nights in the Temple! How cool was that?
That I would receive a gift every day for eight days was no less
than awesome. Then, to hear my mother say that latkes weren't the
only special treat, that there was a multitude of sweet, yummy things
made of honey and nuts and chocolate completely won me over. And
there were lots of songs that Baba and Zaida could teach me and
sing with me at our family Chanukah parties; the dreidel song was
not the only one. I began to believe that maybe, Chanukah wasn't
such a poor, second cousin to Christmas after all.
Due to the energy and enthusiasm of my parents, Chanukah, the Festival
of Lights, became an annual, family celebration and, with each passing
year, the tradition became richer and more meaningful. I realized
that Old Man Fingold had nothing to do with who celebrated Christmas,
or didn't.
One snowy day, as I was trudging home from school, I learned from
Mrs. Carruthers next door that Mr. Fingold was really a lonely,
old man whose wife of 51 years had unexpectedly died of a heart
attack, leaving him heartbroken and irreparably damaged by the loss.
His mind wasn't the same after that and there was no one to take
care of him. He and his wife had never been able to have children,
a fact that deeply saddened them both all of their married life.
"Mr. Fingold was just a little mixed up and angry sometimes,
because he was so sad," Mrs. Carruthers explained.
There was another thing Mrs. Carruthers revealed. Old Man Fingold
had a first name. It was Isaac. His wife's name was Annette. And
in the years before his wife died, he had been as nice as Mrs. Carruthers.
When the Christmas sugar cookies and eggnog began to pall, there
were crispy, golden latkes with honey-sweetened applesauce being
served to the neighborhood children right across the street. All
you had to do was knock on the Fingolds' front door.
Sharon Melnicer is a Jewish writer, artist and teacher
living in Winnipeg, Man.
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