Chanukah is the festival of lights,
One day of presents?
Hell NO!
We get eight crazy nights.

Not gonna lie: If I weren't such a little atheist heathen, I'd totally throw myself a bat mitzvah just so I could sing this song every year at the table

Ok ... now that I think about it, fuck it! Am officially adding it to the repertory of december holiday songs --'cause, you know, Christ was indeed a Jew.

So let's partake in more kosher goodness:

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On Columbus day and Thanksgiving, I often discuss the ambivalent nature of these holidays. Both represent the opening of the Americas to European colonization. This led both to the creation of opportunities that would not have been there otherwise. The example I always use is the fact that had the US not been founded, my family would undoubtedly been killed in Europe during the waves of anti-Semitic violence between 1900 and 1945. The events celebrated by Columbus Day and Thanksgiving day unquestionably saved my family. Of course those same events led to the extermination of many Native American families as well. Hence the ambivalent nature of these holidays.

Among the articles I have written on this subject are:

All we take for granted has been built on genocide

Columbus Day Through the Eyes of Native American Democrats

Columbus Day

And on a related note: America Before Columbus: 1421 and 1491

This year I have some different thoughts on Columbus Day, ones that link directly to the saving of families persecuted in Europe. What gets ignored in the celebrations of Columbus Day (which either are overtly pro-colonialism and/or oddly a reflection of Italian Nationalism) is the interesting story of Columbus himself and his family.
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This comes from the organization Kulanu:

ABAYUDAYA JEWS DELIVER FOOD RELIEF TO UGANDAN VILLAGERS FACING FAMINE

ACEGEREKINEI VILLAGE, Uganda, July 29, 2009 — Members of the Abayudaya Jewish community today delivered 2,420 pounds (1,100 kg) of food relief they donated to hungry families among the estimated three million inUganda facing starvation in a worsening famine.

The Ugandan government says there are food shortages in 52 districts in the north and east brought on by drought and other factors. Nearly 40 people have died so far of hunger-related complications in the East African nation of about 32 million.

Rabbi Gershom Sizomu said here today he wanted to act before those numbers got worse.

“Central to our Jewish values is saving lives,” Rabbi Sizomu told the 65 families sitting on the ground in the shade of a large tree next to mud-hut homes with thatched roofs in this remote village in northeastern Uganda. “We wish you well and we pray that God brings this to an end.”

He was speaking in response to a village elder who thanked the Abayudaya for coming “and for rescuing us.” Acegerekinei is in Katakwi, one of 17 hardest-hit districts that the government says are experiencing famine.
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This comes from the National Jewish Democratic Council:

Forty-seven million Americans are already without health insurance, and everyday 14,000 more lose their coverage. In the last 10 years, premiums have doubled, out-of-pocket costs have increased by a third, and deductibles have continued to rise.

As American Jews, we strive to pursue justice – and as leaders in our community, our rabbis lead the way in pursuing justice. Yet it is not a just society when families are forced to choose between paying their mortgages or paying for prescription drugs. It is not a just society when small businesses must choose between being profitable or providing coverage to their employees. It is not a just society when people are denied health insurance because they have a pre-existing condition for which they need medical care. Equal access to safe and affordable healthcare is an essential social justice issue of our time.

We can do better than this – we must do better than this.
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Rush Limbaugh loves to call Obama a Nazi. To me this shows either Rush has no concept of history or he is deliberately lying, because there is NO RESEMBLANCE between Obama's policies and Nazism. I seriously think Rush needs to read the classic history The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

The National Jewish Democratic Council is sick and tired of Rush's ignorance and/or deliberate deception and are demanding that Rush stop his irresponsible Nazi rhetoric. From the NJDC:

Rush Limbaugh has engaged in some wild right-wing antics over the years. But yesterday he compared President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Hitler and today his website has the logo of the president's health insurance reform plan morphing into a Nazi graphic replete with Swastikas.

Rush has to be stopped, and we need your help to do so – today. Add your voice to those telling Rush’s network that he has to be stopped; sign our petition today.
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Every year at Passover I write a diary focused on the origins of Jews. This is largely what I wrote last year, including a discussion of threads of evidence that influences from Egypt were part of the origin of Judaism, just like the Passover story goes.

Passover celebrates, supposedly, the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. This escape is considered one of the defining moments in Judaism, perhaps THE defining moment. Into this event is placed the entirety of the ancient Jewish identity, supposedly divided into "12 tribes," as well as the defining of Jewish religious law. That is a lot to put into one holiday! But there is a more general theme, that of the struggle for freedom that many cultures can relate to.
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