19 Tevet 5782 | י"ט טבת ה"תשפ"ב
Snippet:
As we approach Christmas and New Year’s Eve and start seeing “Christmas trees” popping up all around us, it is worth exploring where this custom came from, and what the Torah might say about it. It is especially important to address because some Jews from the former Soviet Union continue to have a (seemingly) non-religious “New Year’s tree” yolka in their homes, as do assimilated and intermarried Jews across Europe and America. Is it okay to have such a tree in a Jewish home? As might be expected, the short answer is “no”. To properly understand why, we must take an eye-opening trip back in time.
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I would note that many Jews, at least where I came from in the States, mock X-mas trees as "Hanukkah bushes."
More reading on this topic:
21st Century Idolatry | Former missionary warns Jews about aggressive tactics to bring them to yeshu | Leaving Christianity and Finding the Truth in Torah Judaism | Yad l'Achim (English) |
The reason for this Xmas tree fetish by Jews (many are not) in the SoI is because those are the ones who came from Russia. They take it as a 'national' holiday and the tree is part of it, r'l. It's really a shame that of all places, they brought that into EY. But most of the Russians who came are not Jews anyway. A number of Russian Jews are doing teshuvah, B'H.
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