encino | On Dec. 25, Rod Shapiro and Pat Wong will exchange Christmas and Chanukah gifts spread under a seven-foot Christmas tree.
The interfaith couple in their late 50s, married three years, will light the menorah in the evening and invite friends to stop by their Long Beach home.
Welcome to Chrismukkah 2005, a holiday that offers greeting cards featuring a reindeer with menorah antlers, recipes for Gefilte Goose and Kris Kringle Kugel in “The Merry Mish Mash Holiday Cookbook,” Christmas-tree ornaments decorated with Stars of David, a children’s book called “Blintzes for Blitzen” and gift wrap adorned with matzah-ball snowmen.
For Shapiro, who describes himself as culturally Jewish, Chrismukkah is a lighthearted solution to the familial conflicts that interfaith couples often face.
“Personally, I think that more and more people should embrace their similarities and tolerate their differences, and Chrismukkah is a holiday that allows couples to do that,” he said.
For others who won’t be wishing their interfaith family and friends a Merry Mazel Tov, Chrismukkah is a superficial and commercial pseudo-holiday that presents multiple problems. It’s compounded this year by the fact that Chanukah and Christmas coincide on the secular calendar, something that happens only once every 19 years.
Chrismukkah created enough of a stir last year that the independent Catholic League and the New York Board of Rabbis issued a joint statement condemning it as shameful plagiarism and an insult to both Christians and Jews. The two groups likely will issue another statement this year.
“The criticism still stands,” said Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis. “I just feel it’s inappropriate to take two very distinct holidays that belong to two different faith groups and to synthesize them into one. It doesn’t respect the integrity of either one.”
Chrismukkah entered public consciousness in a television episode of “The O.C.” on Dec. 3, 2003. The main character, Seth Cohen — son of a Jewish father and Protestant mother — decided that interfaith families should no longer have to choose between Christmas and Chanukah.
“I created the greatest super-holiday known to mankind, drawing on the best that Judaism and Christianity have to offer,” he declared.
While Chrismukkah may not yet have realized Cohen’s prime-time expectations, the celebration will be featured for the third time on “The O.C.” Thursday, Dec. 15, in an episode titled “The Chrismukkah Bar Mitz-vahkkah.”
Is Chrismukkah a made-for-TV, faddish holiday that will fade from memory faster than Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle-Me-Elmo? Or is it a more sinister creation that threatens to dilute the religious significance of two distinct holidays, trivializing them and confounding children’s sense of religious identity?
Estimates of the number of interfaith couples widely vary, but sociologist Bruce Phillips, professor of Jewish communal service at Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, puts the number at 624,000.
For many families the distinctions are blurry, and decisions regarding religious upbringing are often ignored until a child enters the picture. That was the case for Ron Gompertz.
Gompertz, who describes himself as “a typical bar mitzvah boy from New York City,” is the son of Holocaust survivors but grew up with a Chanukah bush. His wife, Michelle, the daughter of a Church of Christ minister, identifies more with Buddhism and atheism than anything else.
It wasn’t until just over two years ago, when their daughter Minna was born, that Gompertz, now 52, and his wife started thinking about religious issues. The family moved to Bozeman, Mont., where in 2004 Gompertz created and launched www.chrismukkah.com, which he saw as a way to make light of his intermarriage.
Commercially, Chrismukkah might be gaining some ground. Gompertz reported that sales on his Web site have nearly doubled since last year. He expects to sell about 75,000 Chrismukkah cards, with “Good Cheer with a Schmear,” a picture of four bagels with cream cheese, this year’s top seller.
Gompertz expressed surprise at last year’s anti-Chrismukkah backlash by talk-radio hosts and Jewish organizations.
“I’m a Jew and I’m a good Jew,’ he said.