If explaining Hanukkah to your non-Jewish family (or friends, coworkers, boss, etc) feels harder than celebrating it, you’re in good company. Every year, as soon as the menorahs come out, the questions start rolling in: “Are you still doing Christmas with us?” “Why not celebrate both?” “What does Hanukkah even mean?” and the dreaded “So why did the Jews reject Jesus?”
And somehow these conversations always seem to happen at the most inconvenient moments – in the grocery store line, at work, or halfway through a family dinner you were hoping would stay peaceful.
For many conversion candidates and Jews, the December holidays bring up a strange mix of joy, anxiety, and pressure to suddenly become the Official Jewish Representative for everyone you’ve ever met. It’s exhausting. It can feel like there’s no answer that won’t disappoint someone. And if you’re already navigating your own Jewish journey with uncertainty and tenderness, facing these questions can feel overwhelming.
But here’s the good news: you don’t need perfect answers. You don’t need a Jewish history degree. You don’t even need to be fully confident yet. What you do need is a plan – a few grounded, calm scripts and some clarity around your boundaries.
Never forget: You’re allowed to say no, and “No.” is a complete sentence. They have google.
In this video (and the transcript below), I’ll walk you through the most common Hanukkah and Christmas questions people ask converts and Jews – and give you practical language you can use right away. And don’t worry, you don’t need to take notes. Just sign up for the mailing list here, and get the companion guide free!
If this is your first December as a Jew or a soon-to-be Jew, take a deep breath. You’re not alone. And I promise: you can handle these conversations without spiraling, overexplaining, or compromising your emerging Jewish identity.
Let’s begin.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
If explaining Hanukah to your family feels harder than celebrating it, you’re not alone. The menorah comes out and suddenly everybody wants a TED talk from the Jewish convert.
You don’t need perfect answers, you just need a plan.
So if you’re already rehearsing conversations in your head, let’s walk through them together.
” Are you still doing Christmas with us?” ” Why don’t you celebrate both?” ” What does Hanukah mean?”
Even the casually dropped at dinner, “so why did Jews reject Jesus?”
You can answer all of these without spiraling or overexplaining.
If you’ve ever thought, “I’m going to disappoint everyone no matter what I say,” take a breath.
Your family may not understand your Jewish life yet.
And they might never.
But you can still handle these conversations with calm and clarity.
And if you’re scared that you’re gonna sound defensive, confused, too Jewish, or not Jewish enough? I got you.
You’re allowed to be a beginner.
You’re also allowed to be not a beginner who still doesn’t have all the answers.
You can’t control what they’re gonna ask you, but you can control how you answer.
Some ways are easier than others.
Most importantly, you’re not the first person to have these questions. There is no reason why we need to reinvent the wheel. Benefit from the experience of the people who unfortunately went before you.
This is your December survival kit.
Remember to stay to the end of the video because I’ve got sample scripts for common questions! And don’t worry about taking notes; I made a worksheet with these scripts and frameworks and more that you can get when you sign up for my mailing list at the link in the description below.
Hi, I’m Kochava.
I’m a Jewish convert and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog, Building a Jewish Life.com.
And if if you join that mailing list at Building a Jewish Life.com, I have other resources that could be helpful to you in these situations. You get instant access to an entire free Resource Library.
Two resources you might find particularly helpful are Boundaries Are a Mitzvah and an antisemitism guide for when the questions go too far.
So before we dive into the scripts, let’s normalize a few emotions. First, it is totally normal to feel like you’re disappointing people. It is totally normal to disappoint yourself and feel like you should have handled the situation better.
It is normal to feel like you are representing the entire Jewish people because quite frankly, in a lot of situations, you are the entire Jewish people to the person you’re talking to.
That’s the fun part about antisemitism. You become a walking, talking representative of the entire Jewish people, both to those who mean well and to those who don’t.
What you do and say reflects on all Jews. It’s not right, and it’s not fair.
But it is often true.
It’s a heavy responsibility and you will mess it up. That’s okay. All of us mess it up.
But I want you to remember this just so that you don’t take these questions flippantly.
There’s a time and place and certain people to joke around with.
But most of the time I’m gonna encourage you to take questions like the ones we’re gonna discuss below seriously. Because often they are a serious question, and you have the opportunity to make a Kiddish Hashem, a a sanctification of G-d’s name instead of a Chilul Hashem, a desecration of G-d’s name. This is an opportunity to do a mitzvah.
A mitzvah that can benefit the entire Jewish people.
Assume good intentions until you are absolutely proven otherwise. You’ll be surprised how many people start off kind of hostile, but when you take their questions seriously and engage with them in a good faith manner, even if they are not engaging in a good faith manner, more times than you would suspect they come around and you can end up having actually a really good conversation with, with people who started off really poorly.
As in every bit of advice I give you on this channel, do the best you can and don’t be down on yourself when you fail, because you will fail sometimes.
But if you’re here and you’re watching this video, I know that you care and you are not someone who’s gonna take this flippantly and who’s not going to do a bad job on purpose.. You care, and that means something.
Around Hanukkah is the time when Jews are the most visible of the entire year. And this is kind of ironic given the history of Hanukkah. Because really, Hanukkah is only visible because it’s close to Christmas, and at least in America, people have decided that Hanukkah is “Jewish Christmas” and that it must be a very similar celebration. And it’s quite often the only thing people know about Jews.
If you’re a newcomer to Hanukkah or you need to refresh, I’ll link up here and down in the description below to my video that’s kind of a Hanukkah 101.
It’ll walk you through everything step by step, including what’s required and what’s not. Which can be really helpful in formulating your answers to the questions below.
It also includes more about the story of Hanukah and why there are so many different ways to spell it.
But in a nutshell, Hanukkah is about regular Jews fighting back against the Greeks who tried to outlaw the practice of Judaism and force us to assimilate into the majority culture. Sound familiar? It should.
If you want more about my real feelings on this, go to that Hanukkah 101 video.
So the story of Hanukkah is about being proudly, visibly Jewish, even when the people around us want us to disappear. So I want you to remember that when you’re having these conversations, that you are fulfilling the real mitzvah of Hanukkah: being visibly, proudly Jewish in a culture that is not always friendly towards that.
It’s hard, but you’re doing a good job. And I’m proud of you for wanting to have these conversations in a respectful, kind, loving way.
You don’t need perfect answers. You also don’t need a Jewish history degree.
You are allowed to be learning and a lot of that learning will happen in public sometimes. And you can always say, “I don’t know.” If you like them a lot, you can even say, “I don’t know. I’ll look up that answer and send it to you.” Or “I’ll ask someone and get back to you.”
So let’s get into the meat of the matter. We’re gonna start with planning our conversations before they happen.
First, anticipate what you expect to hear.
Second, think about what kind of relationship you have with this person. Quite frankly, how important is that relationship to you? How often are you going to see this person? What’s their personality like and how have they reacted to conversations like this in the past?
Step three is gonna depend a little bit more on the questions you anticipate. What is your why? What are you trying to accomplish in this conversation? What’s your goal, for lack of a better word? Do you want them to accept the changes you’re making in your life without whining about it? That’s a great goal.
Do you want them to just leave you alone about your Jewish stuff? Also a good goal.
Are you hoping that they’ll understand more about Judaism and why you find it beautiful and meaningful? That’s a great goal.
All of your whys are valid because these are your relationships, both with family and friends and coworkers and bosses, and with your relationship to Judaism.
Step four, decide what’s off limits. What are you unwilling to discuss with them?
If you are thinking through a specific question, you can also think about what you do wanna share with them.
Step five, practical planning. Choose a good time and place. Ideally, a neutral place.
You’re allowed to take breaks from the conversation.
You can also use time limits. Like I’m sorry, I’ve only got 15 minutes before I need to leave to go do X, Y, Z.”
And along those lines, having an exit strategy can be really important. Knowing that you have ways you can end the conversation when you’re done, even if maybe they are not done yet.
I think that’s enough for now.”
” Why don’t we pick up another time.”
” I need some time to think about that.”
Knowing that you can leave the conversation makes it easier to enter the conversation.
And six. Enforce boundaries without apology. You have nothing to apologize for.
You can use phrases like ” that’s a bigger conversation. Here’s the short story.” ” I’m still learning, but here’s what I know right now.”
” I’m not gonna go into the whole history right now. But the simple version is…”
” I don’t have the energy for a really long conversation today.”
And most important of all, you’re allowed to say no. These people have Google. You are not their personal Jewish hotline.
If you want more about developing boundaries around appropriate and inappropriate questions, join that mailing list at Building a Jewish Life.com at the link down below, and get that Boundaries Are a Mitzvah guide. I get a lot of compliments on it, so clearly it’s helping.
Now let’s turn to holiday invitations.
You may have religious Christian family for whom Christmas traditions are considered a non-negotiable.
And there’s a lot of people, especially in America and Europe who view Christmas as secular and universal and for everyone, which can create a lot of pressure if you are trying to push back and be like, “no, really that’s a religious holiday for a religion I don’t belong to.”
So when you’ve got these invitations and these pressures, whether it’s office Christmas parties, family midnight masses, Christmas dinner, You can feel really torn between honoring your emerging Jewish life and maintaining family harmony and relationships, especially if you have a good relationship.
And if you are like many conversion candidates and converts I know, you may struggle with overexplaining yourself and wanting to avoid conflict at all costs. Those are normal and that is why I’m making this video.
But what I deeply want you to understand is that there is nothing wrong with you creating new traditions and your own holiday rhythm. Every family’s traditions change whether or not they want to admit it. People die, people move. New family members join, new traditions get introduced. Holidays are not as static and inviolable as people make them out to be.
You are allowed to have your own life with your own practices and your own holidays. That’s okay. If they wanna die on that hill, that’s kind of their right. But that doesn’t mean that they’re doing anything logical, helpful, or kind.
People get scared of what is new and unfamiliar, and that is why in most cases that I have seen, time improves the situation.
But given this is a once a year thing, it can take five years before you see a lot of meaningful change, and that’s a long time.
But in most cases, stick it out with these relationships because they can survive this even if it’s really hard right now.
And remember that how you approach these invitations and traditions will probably change over time. What you’re doing this year is not necessarily what you will do next year.
You’re probably never gonna get the balance exactly right.
There are a lot of creative solutions to find things that work. It just might take you a few years to figure out where those lines are.
So when you’re considering these invitations, whatever you do, I want you to get some thinking room before you have to answer. Feeling on the spot is the worst, and you’re gonna give an answer that you’re probably not gonna be happy with.
The excuses that I find most useful when you’re trying to get a little more time to think through an invitation or a request: ” I need to check my calendar.” ” I need to check with work.” “I need to check with my partner or family member or roommate.” Put the blame on something else.
And if you are really brave, you can say, “I need some time to think about it. I’ll get back to you.”
If only everyone made us feel comfortable enough to tell the truth, right?
So the first question: what do you actually wanna do?
If you were in this position, then I’m guessing that your answer was not Yes! With an exclamation point. You had some kind of hesitation. So what does that mean? How big is your hesitation? What exactly are you hesitating about?
These are not black and white things. In most cases, you can make something work, but you have to be a little creative.
Are you trying to avoid religious rituals? Are you still wanting to participate socially? Do you wanna skip it all together? Do you wanna come for just a little while?
If it’s a potluck, maybe you bring some of your own kosher food so that that way you know there’s at least one thing you can eat there.
And like above, what’s the relationship and what is the relationship dynamic? How is that going to affect your experience of this event?
So next, what can you do to make it easier if you are attending for some or all of the event? You could arrive late. You could leave early.
You can excuse yourself to the bathroom during prayers.
You could come for the dinner, but stay home while everyone else goes to midnight mass.
We already mentioned about bringing your own kosher food, whether just for yourself or to share with everyone else.
You might even be able to bring your own Menorah, your Chanukiah.
If there is overlap between these Christmas events and Hanukkah, you might find that they would like to see you light a menorah and you could do your evening candle lighting at their place.
Obviously you don’t have to perform this for other people if you don’t want to, but it is an option to bring people a little bit more into your Jewish life.
A really good one is having a support buddy. Whether that is someone in person at the event with you who’s understanding and can help you tag team excuses for when you need them, or if it’s someone that you just text, “oh my G-d, I cannot believe that Aunt Marge said this…”
Having a sympathetic ear available to you during the event can be invaluable.
And then like above, having a clear exit strategy and if necessary with an excuse.
There are a lot of options. And quite frankly, this kind of situation is a great place to use AI to ask questions for brainstorming. It can come up with solutions that you did not even think of. If you’re gonna be coming for only part of an event or skipping out on certain parts during it, some scripts you could use: I’ll come for the social part, but I’ll step out during the religious bits.”
” I won’t be participating religiously, but I’d love the family time.” Another good phrase to keep tucked in your back pocket I know this is different from what you’re used to. I’m not rejecting you or my family. I’m just learning to honor my own tradition.”
If you wanna say no to this invitation, you could say things like, “thanks for the invite, but I’m trying to keep things quiet this week.”
” I appreciate you thinking of me. I won’t be able to make it, but I hope you have a wonderful gathering.”
If you need to lay out a boundary for someone, you could say, ” that’s not gonna work for me this year. I’m taking things one year at a time as I learn how to build my own rhythms.”
And yes, sometimes you’re gonna get pushback.
You can use language like ” It’s not personal. This is about my faith.”
” I hear how much you care. I need you to trust that this is the right thing for me right now.”
” You don’t have to agree, and I appreciate you sharing how you feel.”
” I hear that this feels surprising. I’m not asking for agreement. I’m just asking for respect.”
And for the tough cookies, ” I won’t debate my religious life, but our relationship is still important to me.”
And sometimes when you get pushback, the best answer is actually to redirect them and completely ignore the question ever happened.
” I’m curious, what sorts of traditions did you grow up with?” ” Oh, how are you gonna be celebrating this year?” ” What’s your favorite part of the holiday?”
“Have you picked out anything fun for the kids this year?”
“Is cousin George gonna come visit this year?”
“Oh, didn’t so-and-so have a baby?”
Now let’s get into the meat and potatoes. Some scripts for common questions.
I hope you’ll forgive me that I’m going to read these because I wanna get them right and I put a lot of thought into these and I don’t trust myself to just wing it.
So what’s Hanukkah about? ” It’s a Jewish holiday from when the ancient Greeks took over Israel and outlawed the Jewish religion.
The Jews fought back and reclaimed the Temple in Jerusalem. A lot of people have heard about the oil that burned for eight nights instead of only one. That was the rededication of the temple.”
How do you spell Hanukkah? ” There are a lot of ways to spell it in English and all are correct. Hebrew uses a different alphabet, so trying to write a Hebrew word in a new alphabet means doing the best you can. And people will disagree how to translate that.”
What do the candles symbolize? So here’s a question. Why are they asking the question? Do they want a literal explanation, or do they want a symbolic explanation?
For the literal minded folks: “they remind us of the oil in the Temple that lasted eight nights when there was only enough for one night.” And for the symbolic folks: ” they symbolize bringing light back into the world after a dark time,” or “they symbolize choosing Jewish identity even when there was pressure to assimilate and disappear.”
Why does the Menorah have nine branches? I thought it had eight!
” Because one of those branches is for a candle for lighting, it’s a helper candle called the Shamash, and the rest mark the eight nights.”
Can non-Jews celebrate Hanukkah? ” They can join someone else’s celebration respectfully. But the holiday is Jewish and should be for Jews.”
And for the people who completely missed the bulletin. “Wait, are you Jewish now?”
If you’re someone who is in the conversion process, you could say, ” I’m in the process of becoming Jewish, and Hanukkah is part of my practice.”
If you already converted, you could say, “yes. I converted two years ago,” whenever it was.
Now a personal favorite: “isn’t Hanukah, basically Jewish Christmas?” Okay. What are they really asking here? Are they asking if the traditions are the same? Is it a major holiday? Or something else? They literally may believe that Hanukkah celebrates Jesus’ birth too.
I know this because it happened to me. There are some people out there who do understand that Jews don’t believe that Jesus is G-d, but that they assume Jesus is still a revered figure in Judaism like he is in Islam. I think people are getting Judaism and Islam confused, basically.
If that’s the case, there are questions down below in this video that are going to be more helpful for the specific parts of that question.
But if it’s a normal question, you could answer “no. Christmas is a major Christian holiday. Hanukkah is a minor Jewish holiday. Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kipper are way more important to Jews. Hanukkah became a big commercialized thing in the 1950s because it was close to Christmas. They’re about totally different things with totally different traditions.”
And one that was such a pet peeve for me while I was converting: why don’t you just celebrate both? Because you know, Christmas is for every. Here are several scripts you could use. ” Christmas is a Christian religious holiday. Hanukkah is a Jewish one. There are two different traditions with different meanings, so I focus on the one that’s mine.” ” I know people see Christmas as universal, but I don’t, it’s deeply connected to the Christian religion. And I’m not part of that religion, so celebrating it wouldn’t feel right to me.”
“I know a lot of people celebrate Christmas in a secular way, but for me it’s still a Christian religious holiday. Since I’m Jewish, it doesn’t feel appropriate for me to participate in a holiday from a religion that I’m not a part of.”
And that question’s twin sister. So are you not celebrating Christmas anymore?
I’ve got two ones for you here. “That’s a longer conversation, but in short, I’m focusing on Jewish holidays.” ” It’s not about rejecting Christmas, it’s just not my tradition. I’m choosing to build my own rhythm around Jewish holidays.”
Now, here’s the big granddaddy of the questions, and this is a more general conversion question, but it comes up a lot more than you expect as soon as you tell people you are not celebrating Christmas or certain aspects of Christmas: why did the Jews reject Jesus?
So I’ve got a bunch of answers for this. ” That’s a much bigger topic that we can cover in one conversation, but the short version is Jesus isn’t part of Jewish belief or practice.” ” That’s a deep theological question. I’m not gonna go into the history of it right now, but I can send you a resource if you wanna learn more.”
That’s for if you really like the person. Don’t do favors for people you don’t like and who don’t respect you.
” That’s a big question. Basically, he doesn’t meet the qualifications for a Messiah in the Jewish scriptures. Most importantly, the Messiah will be a normal human being and they’ll bring world peace. For example, the verse that ‘the lion will lay down with the lamb’ hasn’t happened yet.”
A slightly more detailed version of that: “Judaism has a very specific set of criteria for the Messiah: world peace, universal knowledge of G-d, a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, et cetera. Since these things didn’t happen, Jesus isn’t considered the Messiah in Judaism.” In this case it is very common that the people will follow up with questions about, “but what about these prophecies in Isaiah?”
In that case, it is enough to just say ” Jews translate Isaiah and understand it very differently than Christians do.”
A script that is basically a shorter version of that: “Jews and Christians use the same words: Messiah, scripture, prophecy, but we often mean very different things by them. Jesus fits the Christian definitions, but not the Jewish ones.”
And if you really wanna open a can of worms, “Christianity teaches that Jesus is divine, G-d. Judaism doesn’t believe that G-d would ever become human. So Jesus isn’t part of our theology.”
And that’s the worst of it. Those are all the hard questions. The last four or so questions here are kind of softballs. I thought I would end on a slightly lighter note. I didn’t wanna leave you on the, “why did Jews reject Jesus” question.
Do you get eight days of presents? Which you might also get a related question of, are you still accepting Christmas presents?
Which usually translated means “can I still give you a present,” and often, “are you still gonna give me a present?”
If you have traded presents with people in the past, rethink how you wanna handle that. I can give you the example in my family that my parents gave me and my kids Hanukkah presents. We gave them Christmas presents because we were giving to people for their holiday. So here are some scripts you can use. “Some families do a small gift on some or all of the days. It’s a cultural tradition, not religious. It became popular in the 1950s when Hanukkah became more commercialized.” ” I might do something small, but the holiday itself isn’t centered on presents. That’s a modern American tradition, not a Jewish one.”
” I don’t do Christmas gifts anymore since it’s not my holiday, but I’m always grateful for thoughtful gestures.”
” I am focusing on Jewish holidays now, but I’m happy to exchange gifts in a non-religious way if that’s meaningful to you.” That one I had a hard time phrasing, but I hope you get the idea.
If you are doing gifts in some form or people are buying for you, I’ll link above to my video of Hanukkah gift ideas for converts and conversion candidates and other newly religious Jews.
Um, my arm got my wrist started getting tired and I had to put the computer down.
Um, when is Hanukkah? ” Hell if I know. I’ll have to check the Jewish calendar. It changes every year.”
In all seriousness, I have given that answer multiple times. Usually a couple of times a year before I finally bother to pull out the Jewish calendar and look up when Hanukkah is on the Gregorian calendar this year.
And experience tells me that I am not that unusual. You will probably not know several times each year before you finally get bothered enough to look it up.
Why does the date change every year? Now, this answer is a bit detailed, but I don’t think it’s technical. I, I hope that it’s easy enough for the average person to understand. ” The Gregorian calendar, the calendar we use, is a solar calendar, which is why the dates are fixed and are the same every year.
The Jewish calendar is both lunar and solar. It follows the moon for the months, but the sun for seasons. Because of that, Jewish holidays stay in roughly the same season each year,” and I just accidentally clicked a whole bunch away. Where was I?
Okay, going back to that. Um, “because of that, Jewish holidays stay in roughly the same season each year, but the exact date on the Gregorian calendar changes a little.”
And perhaps the easiest question of them all: what does the word Hanukkah mean? It means “dedication.” It’s about the rededication of the desecrated Temple in Jerusalem after reclaiming it from the Greeks in a religious war.
So here’s what I want you to take away from this video. You get to choose what you say, what you share, and who you share it with.
You are allowed to keep things private. You don’t have to share anything with anyone, especially if you do not like them or they do not respect you.
Secondly. Your Jewish journey is still valid even if you stumble over these questions.
You’re doing the best you can and you’ll get a little better every year because you are going to continue having these questions every year for probably the rest of your life. Yay.
So if you would like more practical, down to earth resources like this, do subscribe and join my mailing list at Building a Jewish Life.com. You can find all the links down below. And remember that there is a partner guide to this video that has all of these scripts inside it so that you don’t have to rewatch any of this to write stuff down.
Good luck now that you are here in the December Dilemma, and may the odds be ever in your favor. Chag sameach.
