Shira is today's "soldier-of-the-day" in the never-ending War on Christmas (TM). The mistake she talks about in the title of her post, is not the whole post, but this youthful indiscretion:
I once was zealous about taking Christmas out of the public domain. I now see this from a different perspective, having become observant and lived in religious communities for several decades, and recant my former earlier “crusade” to remove religion from public schools.And what brought about Shira's Jesus-fearing change of heart?
...there is something far, far worse than a Christmas tree in a public school and that is ...that there is a vacuum of values. We may not have Christmas trees in the schools, but many high schools have gay clubs and many offer abortion guidance counseling. Provocative dress is ubiquitous; unisex activites are encouraged (cooking for boys, football for girls) and old fashioned gender roles (Homemakers of America clubs for girls) are discouraged.I get it. If we put Christmas trees back into schools (and encourage kids to venerate the anti-Jewish lie those trees represent) all the nasty gay people will turn straight, and all the smart little girls will give up their ungodly ambitions to become lawyers and doctors, and go running back to the kitchen where they belong. Sounds like a plan, Shira! I don't know why the Yeshivas haven't tried it.
We're also sad to see, the Shira appears to have tentativly accepted Burt Prelutsky's blood libel about how the Jewish grinchs have stolen Christmas:
...I don’t feel it is the place of Jews to tell a Christian country (and the US is a Christian country) that the majority cannot publicly celebrate, have displays, etc. Therefore I have sympathy for those who object to the morphing of Christmas into Seasons greetings.Which Jews, exactly, are tellingg the majority that they "cannot publicly celebrate, have displays, etc?" Can you name names? Sure, there are limits – there have always been Constitutional limits – on what a government sponosored instiution like a school can do, but the Constitution wasn't written by Jews. It's not our fault forced sermons are against the law.
Individiuals and department stores, meanwhile, are free to celebrate Christmas anyway they like. They have always been free to do what they like, which is why so many of their employees don't have decent benefits. Christ, you see is best honored with the words "Merry Chrsitmas" and not by actually heeding his teaching.
(And, not incidently, the claims that schools and other public institutions are being limited in the way that they can celebrate the holiday are grossly exagerated by Christian groups who need the attention for fundraising. For every school district that permits a few Jewish kids to skip singing a song about how Lord Jesus is Messiah, there are several thousand that don't. Odd, isn't it, that Sara, a public school product herself, wants Jewish kids to be exposed to more Christianity.)