Customer Reviews

Hanukkah, Shmanukkah!

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I admit it: this review is in response to the reviewer who called "Hanukkah, Shmanukkah" "offensive and weird." Having grown up on "A Christmas Carol," I was curious to see how Jewish tradition would be worked into the story, and why the first reviewer found it so offensive.

Scroogemacher is the miserly owner of a garment sweatshop in turn-of-the-century New York City. He forces his immigrant workers to work overtime on the last night of Hanukkah, and is visited by the Rabbis of Hanukkah Past, Present, and Future. Scroogemacher is transported to the time of Judah Maccabee, in the middle of the battle to reclaim the Temple, to the crowded tenements where his workers live, and finally, to see his nephew's possible futures based on his choices.

So how did Jewish tradition hold up? The Rabbi of Hanukkah present is a female rabbi, and the text addresses Reform Judaism implicitly. Scroogemacher is outraged when, in the future, he is surrounded by Christmas decorations and music instead of his more familiar Jewish world, to which the rabbi replies, "What can I say? They have good decorations." Liberal sprinklings of Yiddish (a glossary is included) and humorous writing make this an original take on Dickens' work rather than a poor imitation. The artwork evokes a sort of Old World style that works well with the text.

So, to the reviewer who thought that "Hanukkah, Shmanukkah" was offensive and weird, how many other Jewish children's books make an attempt to address the inescapability of Christmas and Christianity in American society while intelligently discussing the immigrant experience (the poignant tale of Scroogemacher's wife being sent back to the Old Country because of trachoma), Reform Judaism, the widening gap between Jewish as secular cultural identity and Judaism as religion, and workers' rights?

How is (Jewish) Scroogemacher a worse influence than the greedy, stingy Christian personified by Scrooge? The important thing is that both find redemption and closer ties to their respective family and cultures. Dickens' Christmas Carol values seem based on tikkun olam, the Jewish commitment to healing the world. "Hanukkah, Shmanukkah" at least attempts to bridge the gap between the multitude of bright, colorful Christmas books for children and the lack of appropriate Jewish-themed books for older children ("Hanukkah, Shmannukah" is suggested for readers ages 9-12). Starting with a universal holiday tale of redemption, it enfolds the warmth and light of Hanukkah, the power of love to transform, and the strength of Jewish tradition. A beautiful, thought-provoking read that brightened my Hanukkah.

This re-telling of Dickens's Christmas Carol is charming, warm and friendly. It presented a story I knew in a new perspective, and I learned things about Jewish culture that I didn't know before. The illustrations are wonderful.

Jewish friends to whom I showed this book are planning to read this story to their children at Hanukkah.

A previous review stated that Dickens' Christmas Carol wasn't ethnic. Yes it was -- it was incredibly WASP ethnic. This re-telling doesn't reinforce stereotypes, but shows how much we all have in common.

The author has done her homework and come up with a winner, would even make a nice TV holiday special with an ecumenical plot, if done right. This book is necessary!

I really do get the problem with simply re-packaging the Christmas concept in Hanukkah paper, as has been suggested about this and other Hanukkah books, but I think this adaptation of Dicken's `A Christmas Carol' stands pretty admirably on its own. It is a large, sturdy, colorful, well-illustrated story book that feels good to hold in your hands and read out loud. I agree with the previous reviewer that randomly sticking in Yiddish words seemed gratuitous and annoying, interrupted the flow and will probably not be understood by young kids. Nonetheless, I find this book gives me visual and tactile pleasure.

The Jewish spin on "A Christmas Carol" is clever, but not, in my opinion, smoothly executed. I liked the characters and illustrations. While I must confess the thought of the Scroogemacher as a "stereotype" that another reviewer complained about did cross my mind, I did not find it particularly troubling. You can't exactly re-tell this Dickens story without a miserly character, now can you?

However, the language was unwieldy, particularly the gratuitous insertion of Yiddish that, far from a tasteful peppering of flavor, become a constant intrusion, especially since a storybook of this nature is something you would typically want to read out loud to children. Aside from the deluge of unfamiliar (to some readers and most children) Yiddish terms, the story frequently runs off in directions that will leave most children lost and confused.

I don't think you need to hypersensitive to find this book offensive, and not in a redeeming way. The characters in the original story are not particularly ethnic, but in this book they are very ethnically Jewish. While I realize that Scroogemacher turns out to be nice, and I don't claim the book is meant to be offensive, the idea of a Jewish Scrooge is not a stereotype that needs reinforcement, especially to kids.