A Jewish Christmas Tradition

American Jews go out to eat Chinese for Christmas. According to an article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jews heading out to Chinese restaurants on Christmas is not a myth. It’s science! It’s been studied. And they proceed to cite various services and agencies that have gathered statistics to prove it, with Szechuan chicken being the most popular dish.

They go on to mention Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 2010 when she was asked by Lindsey Graham where she was on Christmas day and she replied, “Like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.”

American Jews may not celebrate Christmas, but they do, apparently, have a Christmas tradition. Somehow or other, in the mid-20^th century, Jews in the Northeast, especially in New York, began to go out to eat Chinese.

Explanations of how Chinese food on Christmas came about all seem a bit wanting. This article says that Chinese food was acceptable because whatever pork or shellfish there may have been was chopped up into such tiny pieces that you couldn’t identify them. I don’t think so.

The explanation that Chinese restaurants were among the few that were open on Christmas is the standard explanation, but then why didn’t they just go to a kosher deli?.

In any case, being a non-religious, non-observant Jew who wants to participate in my people’s traditions, I decided to go eat Chinese on Thursday. I don’t particularly like Chinese food, but it was Christmas.

So I went to the big Chinese buffet, and it turns out that in addition to Szechuan chicken, spring rolls, and sweet and sour pork, they have paella, fideua, sausages, and all manner of Spanish and other food to choose from. The choice was substantial and so was the place, a huge space that sits 300 or more, and surprise, surprise, it was almost full with far more people than I expected. Some were speaking Spanish, but the majority were speaking Arabic and the women were wearing headscarves. Here, where there are no Jews (I am probably the only Jew in the city), it’s the Moroccans who go out to eat Chinese for Christmas. I wonder if they know they have adopted an age-old Jewish tradition.