You Don't Have to Be Jewish

Susan Estrich on Dec 25, 2025

One of my most distinct memories of childhood is sitting in the back seat of my mother's car with my sister on Christmas Eve as my mother explained that there would be no Christmas at our house because we were Jewish. It's not your holiday, she told us. And it's not. It belongs to those who worship Jesus, which we do not.

It took me many years to realize that you don't have to be Jewish to feel lonely and depressed over the holidays.

Who is so lucky as not to have a missing person at the table, someone loved and lost or far away?

Who is so lucky as not to have life's sadness and disappointments creep in?

Who gets everything they want?

If you are one of those lucky enough to feel only joy, then I have nothing to offer you but jealousy, which is hardly a desirable attitude for any time of year, much less the holidays. Isn't this supposed to be the time when we are grateful for what we have, not resentful of what we don't? So be happy, if you are one of the very lucky ones, be grateful, be thankful for your blessings.

We all carry in our heads the picture of some other, happy family, celebrating what we don't have. Perfect parents, perfect children, perfect grandchildren gathered around the table. Do we even know such people? Do they even exist? I hope so.

But for the rest of us, I have learned, this is the season to be kind -- to others, and to ourselves. I've had many better Christmases than the one in the back seat of my mother's car. I've been invited by friends who, even if they do not have the perfect table, manage to do a damn good imitation of one and spread cheer to all who join them. And I've had worse Christmases, invited nowhere, eating a TV dinner alone, waiting for the day to be over.

At the Turning Point convention last week, as conservatives "struggled" with the question of whether to condemn anti-Semitism in their midst, J.D. Vance refused to condemn the anti-Semites, declaring this to be a "Christian nation" where "you don't have to apologize for being white anymore."

I have never apologized for being white and I have never heard anyone else apologize either. We are not a Christian nation. We were founded on the principle of religious freedom, of separation of church and state. We were founded on the principle that people should be free to choose who and how they worship, and that the path to religious observance should be paved by freedom to go in any direction we please, so long as we don't hurt others in doing so.

J.D. Vance is married to a woman who is neither white nor Christian. Did he ever apologize? I'm sure not. So why say such a thing, which only feeds an absurd sense of victimization and fuels racial hatred. Why divide us even further?

Christmas is not the time to divide and conquer, no matter how well that may play in an Administration that thrives on polarization.

Christmas may not be my holiday, but this season is still my season, and it is a season in which we come together seeking community and peace. That doesn't amount to taking Christ out of Christmas. Just the opposite. We celebrate our diversity.