Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies

Abstract:

A rich array of original Christmas folklore, mythology, and stories exists in Yiddish. In this paper, I present a framework for understanding the Yiddish literary response to Christmas in the context of a dark midwinter folklore that has evolved across cultures since antiquity. Among Christians, this midwinter folklore gave rise to the fundamental Christmas literary motif of the balance of cold and darkness with warmth and light, with the latter two often signifying comfort and goodwill. I argue that the fundamental Christmas literary motif employed in Yiddish is consistent with that of Christians, but key elements are distorted to reflect a distinctly Jewish perspective: Yiddish folklore inverts the figure of Jesus from being the Christian emblem of light into an emblem of midwinter darkness, and modern Yiddish literature adapts the motif of balancing darkness with light as a metaphor for balancing Old World and New World values. Whereas light characteristically prevails in the traditional Christmas story, the Yiddish Christmas story corrupts this optimism to express Jewish sentiments about Christianity and the non-Jewish world.