Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, The coincidence this year of Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah is very unusual – it last happened in 1888. But in a way it’s fitting, as American Jews have been embracing Thanksgiving for more than two centuries.

By the time the first of eight candles in Jewish menorah were lit on Wednesday evening for the start of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, the country was largely closed down for Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday.

According to the most commonly cited calculation, not only has this not happened for 125 years, but it won’t happen again for more than 70,000 years.

That is because the Jewish calendar is shifting in relation to the Gregorian calendar very, very slowly… at a rate of four days every 1,000 years.

It’s thanks to a quirk of both calendars that 2013 has this curious new amalgam: Thanksgivukkah.

The term was coined, and trademarked, by a marketing specialist called Dana Gitell, who teamed up with an online Jewish gift shop to sell T-shirts and other memorabilia.

Among the items on sale are a “menurkey” – a menorah shaped like a turkey – designed by a nine-year-old New Yorker, whose family say they have sold thousands at $50 a piece.

There’s a Facebook page with more than 13,000 “likes”, a #Thanksgivukkah hashtag on Twitter, and a large number of YouTube music videos of varying quality.

Thanksgiving food:

Hanukkah food:

Perhaps the most common online discussion topic is food, and ideas for “mash-up” recipes that combine festive delicacies from both sides – from potato latkes with cranberry applesauce to rye pumpkin pie.

All this has brought to the surface the longstanding affection for Thanksgiving among American Jews.

“American Jews love Thanksgiving and celebrate it every year with the rest of America,” says Gitell.

Whereas some Jewish families might not take part in Halloween or Christmas, Gitell says she doesn’t know any Jewish family that wouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. “I think that Thanksgiving is generally considered kosher by all Jews,” she says.

This is partly because Thanksgiving is generally seen as a secular, national holiday in which people honour family and community, regardless of ethnic group or religious denomination.

It is also popularly associated with pilgrims giving thanks for their new life in America, where they could practise their religion freely.

In that respect, some see similarities with the story of Hanukkah, which celebrates the miraculous lighting of the menorah in Jerusalem’s Holy Temple after the victory of the Maccabees against the Syrians in the 2nd Century BC.

Though several rabbis have expressed reservations about Thanksgiving, and one even stated his opposition to eating kosher turkey, Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of the Washington office of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad movement, says there is “nothing adverse to anything Jewish or contradictory to Judaism” in Thanksgiving.

“For that celebration to happen – as we are in our religious calendar celebrating our own religious freedom, as it was achieved in ancient times – makes it only that more emphatic,” he says.

Greeting cards are among this year’s Thanksgivukkah products
US history has also been deployed to firm up the links, right back to the use of rabbinic texts used by Puritans to thank God for their safe arrival in America.

After George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide Thanksgiving celebration in 1789, the preacher at New York’s oldest congregation, Shearith Israel, gave a Thanksgiving sermon and instructed his congregation to observe the holiday.

The service was unprecedented in the history of Jewish liturgy and prayer, says Allan Nadler, a professor of Jewish studies at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

“The creation of a Hebrew religious service to commemorate a non-Jewish holiday, a holiday whose origins have nothing to do with the Jews – that’s quite remarkable.”

Their immediate adoption of Thanksgiving is also an example of how “Jews in general embraced everything American with real fervour”, says Nadler.

“The way in which the Jews immigrated to America in the 19th Century – especially the mass wave of Russian Jews at the end of the 19th Century – the speed with they acculturated themselves and rose up economically and intellectually in universities I don’t think has any parallel.”

Historically, Hanukkah was a relatively minor Jewish festival, but it has gained in significance. Gifts are now often exchanged, especially in North America.

“In America it really became important because of the timing – it fitted into the ‘festival season’,” says Nadler. “For Jews anxious to have cultural bonds and interfaith bonds with their Christian neighbours, Hanukkah was perfect.”

Currently on sabbatical in his native Canada, Nadler says he was taken aback after he arrived in the US as a graduate student and was invited by an orthodox rabbi to a Thanksgiving dinner.

He is “feeling a little forlorn” about missing the holiday this year – but he winces at the commercialisation of Hanukkah. And that goes for Thanksgivukkah, too.

Thanksgiving Greetings

Thanksgiving Greetings, (AP) – One of Congress’ most likable veterans, Rep. Charles Rangel, would become the 23rd House member in the nation’s history to be censured if the House goes along with a recommendation of its ethics committee.

After Thanksgiving, House members will take up the solemn task of disciplining one of their own when the New York Democrat is reproached for financial and fundraising misconduct.

It will be one of the more unpleasant jobs in the waning days of the 111th Congress because the congressman from Harlem is legendary for his friendliness and greetings to anyone he passes on the grounds of the Capitol.

The normally self-confident, 80-year-old Rangel, newly re-elected with 40 years of House service behind him, was reduced to pleading with the ethics committee Thursday to refrain from calling him corrupt.

It didn’t.

“Although prior committee precedent for recommendation of censure involved many cases of direct financial gain, this committee’s recommendation of censure is based on the cumulative nature of the violations and not any direct personal financial gain,” the committee said in a report.

The ethics committee deliberated about three hours before voting 9-1 to recommend a censure, plus a requirement that Rangel pay taxes he owes on income from a vacation villa in the Dominican Republic.

If the House agrees to a censure resolution, Rangel would stand before his colleagues at the front of the chamber — known as the well — where the resolution of censure would be read by the speaker of the House.

The House has the option of changing the punishment to a reprimand, which eliminates an oral rebuke at the well.

Rangel was convicted in an ethics trial this week by a panel of lawmakers on 11 counts of ethical wrongdoing, including his use of House letterheads and staff to solicit money for a college center named after him. A number of the donors had business before the House Ways and Means Committee while Rangel served as chairman.

Rangel also filed a decade’s worth of misleading financial statements understating his assets and converted a subsidized New York apartment — designated for residential use — into a campaign office. Other tenants who violated their lease got evicted.

The tax issue was a sore point for several members of the ethics committee, who said it was especially egregious that a former chairman of the House’s tax-writing committee failed for 17 years to pay taxes on the income from his island villa.

It’s unclear how much Rangel owes in taxes. An ethics committee document indicated he owed $16,775 as of 1990, but Rangel has paid some of his back taxes.

The Rangel case won’t end the ethics committee’s business. On Nov. 29, the panel of five Democrats and five Republicans will hold an ethics trial for Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

Waters is vigorously fighting charges that she improperly attempted to get federal financial aid for a bank where her husband is an investor.

Thankful Quotes

Thankful Quotes, Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people you only see once a year. And then discover once a year is too often.

– Johnny Carson

Thanksgiving is so called because we are so thankful that only comes once a year.

– P.J. O’Rourke

I love Thanksgiving turkey … is the only time in Los Angeles who are natural breasts.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call Thanksgiving?

Erma Bombeck

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. Are consumed in twelve minutes. Half the time being twelve minutes. This is no coincidence.

Erma Bombeck

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Thanksgiving is sure is a holiday that everyone is waiting. This means that Christmas is near, Black Friday 2010 sales would happen the next day, no food in every house, gifts and more.

Much of the traditions of all, everyone gathers around. While some take as much of seriously Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving others find funny quotes and enter this in normal conversation with friends and family to break the ice and start out conversations.

Thanksgiving Wishes

Thanksgiving Wishes, Thanksgiving is the celebration that is rich in traditions. Whether gathering with family, friends or neighbors, is the feast of the community.
Scharnweber clan, all adults living in their own houses still go home to La Grange Park Thanksgiving. Marcia (aka mom) said: “If I did not make that green bean casserole, I do not think they would come.”
300 block of Catalina Avenue is a tradition that everyone on the block can participate at bringing together the elements to send troops, topics include chips, granola bars, Oreo cookies, soup, Campbell’s Chunky Rice Krispies trafficking and magazines, among others. Each soldier she loves getting mail and really appreciate a letter of support, appreciation, a letter from the kids on the block, especially during the holidays. A neighbor has a box on the porch and has all the elements, along with monetary donations to cover shipping costs.
I have the feeling of Thanksgiving this year will return to simpler forms and simpler times. Is it the economy? Or the people who are tired of walking and want to enjoy the rest of the day’s holiday to give thanks for what you have?
That feeling of wanting to keep what is near the penalty was confirmed when I visited Plymouth Place Senior Living? 315 N. LaGrange Road, and spoke to some residents.
Elaine Kennedy has lived in Plymouth Place Senior Living? For a little over a year. She is very happy there and even happier that his daughter lives in the area.
. “I’m going to my daughter’s house for Thanksgiving; lives in Western Springs Five of the children shall be there. Home of two of the university and conducting a flight from New York Come to the table and state what we are grateful y. was fun when the children were young. ”
Elaine is grateful for his family and friends and their health and geraniums still blooming on the balcony!
In talking with Dan and Raedell Pancake, the true meaning of Thanksgiving could not have been more sincere. Dan is currently in rehabilitation at Plymouth Place Senior Living and Raedell stays with him during his stay. They have five children.
“Our greatest gift is our family. We work on it, it takes practice,” says Dan. “I can honestly say if they were our children, we still would love to have lunch with any of them. We have been blessed with a family that works.”
This year, the tradition of the kitchen Raedell will change a little, all kids Pancake and their wives and / or boyfriends will come home to the residence of the top of the crepe in Willow Springs and cook dinner for their parents.
“We have a chef in the family and with new brides and grooms, one of Columbia, one in Mexico, we will have a variety of Thanksgiving at home, like Raedell wanted When you’re a dear mother, your children honor their wishes.”says Dan.
As with Elaine, the pancakes are very grateful for all they have. Health, family, friends, good food prepared with love. Happy Thanksgiving and all the blessings of the season!

Thanksgiving Wishes

Traditionally, Americans give thanks for the blessings our families, our people and our country have continued to enjoy during the past year, and years past—and so we should.

However, this Thanksgiving, as our nation faces many problems and we are on the verge of making pivotal decisions on, among others, war and peace, the economy and our common health care, I believe that is also appropriate and important that we give thanks—ahead of time, and each to our own God—for what we hope will be the wisdom and guidance our leaders will need to make the right decisions in matters that will so fundamentally affect present Americans and generations to come.

As always, our thanks to all those magnificent men and women in our military, especially to those who today find themselves in harm’s way. May God bless you and keep you safe.

Finally, I wish all the staff, contributors and readers at The Moderate Voice, and their loved ones, a blessed Thanksgiving.

Image: Courtesy Montgomerycountymd.gov

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