Chrismukkah 2006 - "I spit on you and your whole marketing scheme"
Well, it's another Chrismukkah.
Who would believe it? I wouldn't have, except I was visited by the scary ghosts of Chrismukkah past in the form of my first "fan mail" of the season.
By Chrismukkah 2005, the controversy had pretty much died down as Chrismukkah seemed to receive mainstream acceptance. But now, with my new book (Chrismukkah: Everything You Need to Know to Celebrate the Hybrid Holiday) arriving in stores, there seems to be a fresh audience of narrow-minded folks being exposed to Chrismukkah for the first time. Take this cheery good tidings of an email:
"Dear Mr. Gompertz,
You think you're doing such a noble thing. After all, there are all those poor interfaith families with nothing to hold on to! You should be ashamed of yourself making money on trying to reduce the already shrinking jewish population. I picked up your book at Borders and felt sick.
There is NO correlation between Christmas and Chanukah. There is no way one who knows anything about the two religions could ever rationalize such a thing. One is Jesus as the Messiah (whom, you might remember, we as Jews do not recognize) and there is the Historical holiday of the Maccabeans.
What you are doing is justifiying a jewish man's choice to marry out of his religion and allow a shiksa to raise her children that way.
To tell you the truth, you should be shot. Your ancestors would be ashamed of you.
I spit on you and your whole marketing scheme. I hope your ill-gotten money comes to no good for you."
Oy.
L'shona tova to you too.
2 Comments:
that is insane!!
Danny said: "that fan letter is not insane. Although of course it is. It's an important letter, because is shows just how screwed up some people are, in the area of religious belief. You will get more letters like this, sad to say, so get ready for them, and best is to read them and then IGNORE them, because they are coming from a deep dark place of fear and insecurity and fundementalism belief. You can be sure that when Santa was first invented as the Coca Cola mascot for Xmas long ago, the Coke people also got angry letters from religious fundementalists like the woman or man above, who said the same thing about kids writing letters to Santa when that tradition first started. That Santa should be shot for taking kids away from you know WHO! REligious folk are like that, i mean, fundamentalist religious folk, not good liberal open-minded religious people, and there are many of that kind of open-minded people among both Jews and Christians in the USA, so ignore that punk lady above, her anger is her own fear of the unknown, she is brainwashed, so ignore her, but save the letter for historians and posterity. Ron, you doing a good thing, and you are offering a good new tradition for those interfaith families would are already embracing the tradition! IT's funny to see and read that letter, but gotta love the lady for being so silly and yes, fundemntalistlically insane. We all know you are doing a good thing and your book will touch the people it needs to touch. But get ready for more angry screeds like that letter above, and also editorials in newspapers. You will be denounced here and there by fearful people. You will be emrbaced by all who love what you are doing. Pepper and salt. Life goes on. C'est la vie. -- Danny
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home