Hanukkah in America

Starred review from July 15, 2013
American Jewish History editor Ashton (Rebecca Gratz) has written a scholarly but accessible guide to the evolution of the Festival of Lights in America. After a brief introduction to the origins of the eight-day celebration of the Maccabees’ victory over the Greeks in the second century B.C.E., Ashton picks up in the mid-1800s, when the holiday “began to evolve from an often neglected occasion in the Jewish calendar to one deemed particularly relevant for American Jews.” During the Civil War, Jewish soldiers fighting for the Union identified with their brave and persistent Maccabean forebears, while competing factions of American Jewry sought to lay claim to “the mantle of the Maccabees” in order to bolster their position. Most will be familiar with modern efforts to counter the pervasiveness of Christmas by boosting Hanukkah’s significance, but Ashton’s thorough treatment of her topic is sure to enlighten—she discusses everything from the official observances of Hanukkah at the White House to how the rise of the celebration affected mainstream ad campaigns and the number of opportunities available to Jewish women. It all adds up to powerful support for her thesis that Hanukkah now enjoys “a more significant place in the American Jewish calendar than it had known” since the events it commemorates. B&w photos throughout.

October 1, 2013
An American Jewish History editor details the modern development of Hanukkah's rituals and traditions Ashton (Religion Studies/Rowan Univ.; Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America, 1997, etc.) begins her history of Hanukkah with a brief account of the second-century B.C. Judean revolt against Hellenistic rule and influence. While the Jewish calendar historically celebrated Hanukkah to commemorate the success of this revolt, it was seen as a fairly minor festival. However, during the late 17th and into the early 18th centuries, Jewish immigrant communities on America's East Coast felt that the influence of proximity to the Christian holidays of their neighbors and new Enlightenment ideas were posing threats of assimilation. Following a common Jewish theological practice, liberal reformers and ardent traditionalists alike looked to a shared religious history as a means to understand, define and defeat the problems of the present. Concurrent with America's decision to add to its holiday calendar--e.g., Thanksgiving (1863) and Memorial Day (1868)--Hanukkah's importance increased by demarcating developing traditions in a new land and offering the Jewish alternative to Christmas. Along the way, Ashton gives a nod to the role of women through an explanation of their crucial domestic job of making the home Hanukkah-friendly. The increasing malleability of the symbolism attached to Hanukkah first became evident in the 20th century, when the Hanukkah story was used to contextualize events associated with the Holocaust and the foundation of the state of Israel. Though occasionally too dense with information, this work shows how Jewish communities used "an element within Judaism that corresponded to an element of Christianity in order to resist Christianity." A fact-filled, mostly interesting account of Hanukkah's development in the United States.

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August 1, 2013

Ashton (religion studies, Rowan Univ.; Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America) provides a thorough cultural history of Hanukkah in the United States, tracing the holiday's importance to American Jews. She argues that Hanukkah's popularity among Jewish Americans can be attributed to its family focus, its proximity to Christmas, and the opportunities it provides celebrants to discuss assimilation and God's intervention in history. Readers unfamiliar with Hanukkah will welcome the first chapter, "What is Hanukkah?" in which Ashton describes the Maccabean revolt that inspired the festival and goes on to discuss the holiday's historical evolution. Ashton details in subsequent chapters the uses to which American Jews put Hanukkah throughout American history, e.g., as an antidote to assimilation, an alternative to Christmas and, poignantly, a rallying cry during World War II and the Holocaust. The chapter "Hippies, Hasidism, and Havurot" describes Hanukkah's development since the 1960s, especially the influence of the counterculture, both Jewish and non-Jewish, leading readers to an understanding of the contemporary iteration of the holiday. VERDICT A successful and accessible history, Ashton's book will appeal to general readers and specialists with an interest in American Jewish history.--Matt Rice, Philadelphia

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2013
Religiously, Hanukkah is considered a minor Jewish festival. Ashton's wonderfully readable, fact-packed history demonstrates, however, that in the U.S., Hanukkah isn't minor at all. From at least the middle of the nineteenth century, it has been a vehicle for asserting solidarity among a never-large American minority and establishing that minority's credentials as faithful Americans as well as faithful Jews. Further, Ashton asserts, Hanukkah has always played a role in response to the successive challenges American Jews have faced over the course of the last century and a half, as their numbers and varieties of religious practice varied with changes in immigration (wide open, then severely restricted), assimilation (increasingly tolerated), and family structures (as affected, especially, by better contraception and easier divorce). Fueling Hanukkah's success in both functions is its longtime association with bolstering the family, especially through the games, songs, school pageants, plays, and gift giving deliberately developed to popularize it. The scholarship base of Ashton's account is, judging from the enormous number of reference notes, massive; the illustrations scattered throughout the text are always pertinent; and Ashton's evenhandedness most admirable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)