TOLERANCE FOR CHRISTMAS

December 8, 2002  
Not-so-merry 'Time of Giving'
Tolerance means allowing people to embrace beliefs and celebrations  
By LICIA CORBELLA -- Calgary Sun

The other day while on the phone, I wished my friend Aron Eichler a happy Hanukkah.

Before we hung up, Aron said the following: "If I don't see you or talk to you before then, have a very Merry Christmas."

It was easy. It really was. I, a Christian, sincerely wished a Jewish friend best wishes at one of the holiest times of the year for him, and he wished the same for me.

I can assure you, the word Hanukkah did not offend me, nor did the word Christmas offend Aron.

One of the reasons I have loved visiting New York for about 12 years in a row just before Christmas was how unabashed the whole Christmas and Hanukkah seasons are.

Right outside of the glorious Plaza Hotel stands one of the world's largest menorahs. As for the rest of the city, well, there really isn't any place on Earth that decks the halls (not to mention the skyscrapers, streets and parks) the way New York does.

Is it commercial? Undoubtedly. But it's fabulous as well.

Just a few days ago, I watched on television as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- who is Jewish -- hit the switch that lit the enormous and now world-famous Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

When that glorious 76-ft. tree was lit -- with its 30,000 bulbs -- Bloomberg exclaimed: "Merry Christmas everyone," to loud cheers from the assembled multi-cultural throng.

Indeed, Bloomberg is the mayor of likely the most multi-cultural city in the world and yet not once was that tree referred to as a holiday tree, as happened in Toronto's Nathan Phillip's Square until Toronto's Mayor, Mel Lastman, who is also Jewish, stepped in and put an end to the nonsense.

Bloomberg did not yell out, "Season's greetings, everyone." He knows Christmas is an enormous boom time for his city. In fact, unless you book months in advance, you'd be very hard-pressed to find a hotel room in that enormous city.

Fact is, the first thing my husband and I would do upon arriving in Manhattan after dropping off our bags at our hotel and eating some hot borscht and matzo ball soup at the Carnegie Deli was to go see "the Christmas tree."

New York celebrates Christmas so unabashedly because Americans have always embraced their traditions and history and, like it or not, the Judeo-Christian ethic is the founding philosophy of North America and the entire free world.

Canada's government officials continually try to deny that fact in some misguided, well-intentioned attempt to make newcomers feel welcome, when, in fact, the reason the non-Christian newcomers are here to begin with is because they want what this country has to offer.

Many years ago, I arrived in Morocco right smack dab in the middle of Ramadan. It was near impossible to eat during that time since Muslims fast from sunup to sundown during the entire month -- and unlike here, people really aren't given the option of complying or not.

However, when Ramadan was explained to me I decided to embrace the tradition. It didn't mean I was following Islam. It just meant I was showing respect to the majority who lived in the country I chose to visit.

I have celebrated Chinese New Year with my Chinese friends and they have celebrated Thanksgiving with me. I was honoured to attend a Passover seder and a Jewish friend of mine wears a Christmas sweater to all Christmas events.

Isn't that what tolerance and understanding is? Tolerance doesn't mean we wipe the slate clean and transform all traditions into a uniform kind of beige pablum.

Tolerance means we allow everyone the opportunity to celebrate whatever the heck they want whatever way they want. And it just so happens that Christmas represents the traditions of the vast majority of Canadians, so it is impossible to avoid.

Don't like Christmas trees? Then don't look. Stay out of the malls, avert your gaze at city hall -- a building and place of democracy directly begun upon the foundations of Christianity.

When the Royal Canadian Mint launched their television ad in which the song Twelve Days of Christmas was rewritten to become the Twelve Days of Giving, frankly, I just shrugged.

I don't expect anything other than idiocy and hostility to all things Christian from our federal government anyway. After all, it was Prime Minister Jean Chretien's protocol office which demanded that the name of Christ be banned during the memorial service Sept. 9, 1998 to commemorate the 229 people killed in the Swissair Flight 111 crash off Peggy's Cove.

What was most troubling is the protocol office issued a ban on Christianity despite the fact that a Native Canadian was granted "permission" to speak of her people's beliefs, a Rabbi read from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Muslim representative read from the Koran invoking both Mohammed and Allah.

In other words, the mint was just following their master's voice.

But it's the latest abomination to western civilization that has me really concerned. The Royal Ontario Museum -- which receives my tax dollars to keep it going -- has just wiped out 2,000 years of history to be more "inclusive."

No longer will artifacts be dated with BC ("Before Christ") and AD ("Anno Domini," which is Latin for "in the year of the Lord"). Now it's BCE ("Before Common Era") and CE ("common era.")

Ironically, the first artifact to have this new policy imposed upon it is the ossuary of James, the brother of Christ, one of the most important Christian artifacts ever.

The ROM has decided to do this during Advent at the most holy time of the Christian calendar.

Intolerant? Yes. Insensitive? You bet. Historically inaccurate? Even more so.

Nevertheless, have a happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas, 2002 AD.