IFF's 2005 December Dilemma Survey

The results of the latest survey from www.InterfaithFamily.com (a non-profit publisher and advocacy membership association that works to encourage Jewish choices by interfaith families) was released today. IFF makes no secret that their "agenda" is to promote the "Jewish" choice for Interfaith families They're not exactly a subjective academic research group. Nonetheless, each year, IFF promotes the results of it's survey, a survey conducted via email to it's own subscriber list (a self-defined group particularly interested in the subject of promoting Jewish choices for interfaith familes). This years edition of the survey focuses on Chrismukkah. Interestingly, prior to last holiday, only a few people knew what Chrismukkah was. Yet the IFF survey reports that this year, 57% of participants know about Chrismukkah. That's pretty darn amazing to us. IFF writes “Because of Chrismukkah and because the holidays fall on the same day, there has been increased concern about the blending of religious traditions known as religious ‘syncretism,’ but the 2005 December Dilemma Survey found that’s not happening, at levels consistent with last year’s survey,” This is good since we've gone through great pains trying to clearly explain that Chrismukkah is not about religion. It's about sharing the holidays together under one roof. Interestingly, 71% of Jewish interfaith responders have Christmas trees in their homes and lit the menorah. Many survey respondents wrote that celebrating Christmas actually strengthened their children’s Jewish identity. By our defintion of Chrismukkah - these 71% are clearly celebrating Chrismukkah. Yet, in contrast with their holiday behavior, the survey reported only 6% of partricipants thought Chrismukkah was a "good" idea, and 78% thought it was a "bad" idea (because of the usual fear - different backgrounds, meanings and significance of the two holidays are lost when combined and because blending them is confusing to children). That's not surprising considering the self-selected, highly filtered audience responding to the survey, and the way in which the questions were written. A few months ago, IFF asked me to write a pro Chrismukkah "rebuttal" editorial for their December issue. We look forward to receiveing our copy of the new issue.