Dear Fellow Congregants of Temple Beit Blogosphere,
Shalom!
May I commend you on the excellent work you did last month. Getting Walmart to say "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" was a real coup! We even got Bill O’Reilly’s attention, and he ended up promoting it endlessly.
Did you know that one of Bill O’Reilly’s producers is Jewish? What a shonda! Let’s not even bring up that Jack Abramoff. Never trust an Orthodox Jew who spends too much time at an Indian casino.
Anyway, the Temple Sisterhood is already making plans for next year’s big Holiday controversy. Imagine what FOX News will say when we suggest changing the title of the traditional carol "Silent Night, Holy Night" to "Silent Night, Ho Ho Ho Night." so it is less "religiously Christian." Ooh, boy, that’s going to be a good one! You’ll all be receiving your memos in the mail some time in September.
As you know, the next big Christian holiday is Easter. Normally, here in America, we don’t get much bothered by Easter. After all, we have Passover, and most of us would rather eat some good gefilte fish than an Easter ham. In fact, I’m sure if Jesus was here himself, he’d be chugging down the Manischewitz at a seder with the rest of us.
However, things might be different this Easter. According to the Washington Post, trouble is brewing in Easter-land, and it has nothing to do with wearing bonnets:
Three months before the annual Easter egg roll at the White House, the usually festive event is already taking on a divisive edge because of plans by gay- and lesbian-led families to turn out en masse in hopes of raising their public profile.
Conservative groups are up at arms at the thought of thousands of gays and lesbians coming with their children to participate in the annual White House "egg roll.".
"It’s improper to use the egg roll for political purposes," said Mark Tooley of the conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy.
Now, most Jews only know one "egg roll," and it goes best with a little spicy Chinese mustard. But maybe it’s time for us to take a little political action of our own. Why shouldn’t our children have the simcha of going to the White House and playing on the front lawn with all the Christian kids?
Of course we want our "little bundles of joy" to maintain their Jewish identity at this event. That’s why Danny Lebowitz of the Temple Men’s Club had the wonderful idea of providing each Jewish child with his or her own matzoh ball to roll on the White House lawn.
What a great country this is where Christian children and Jewish children can play side by side, rolling their eggs and matzoh balls side by side!
Take that, Bill O’Reilly!
Rabbi Neilochka Kramer
