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New Hallmark Hanukkah Movies Are Anti-Semitic
(Washington Post) Britni de la Cretaz - The Hallmark channel has introduced two Hanukkah movies to its Christmas lineup this year. There's just one problem: Neither movie is a Hanukkah movie. They are Christmas movies with Jewish characters. And they rely on some of the oldest anti-Semitic tropes in the book. In "Holiday Date," a woman hires a Jewish actor to pose as her boyfriend and join her at her family's house for Christmas, but the family grows "suspicious" about "whether he knows how to celebrate." The trope of the sneaky, untrustworthy Jew, who is a perpetual outsider, is an enduring and pernicious anti-Semitic stereotype. "Double Holiday" follows a Jewish woman as she plans a company Christmas party with her office rival to further her professional ambition to get a promotion. In the movie, Hanukkah stands only in relation to Christmas, not on its own terms. Indeed, it functions as an obstacle to the rest of the characters getting to celebrate as usual. Along with the coming Lifetime movie "Mistletoe and Menorahs," these stories hinge on Jewish characters being compelled to observe Christmas, and the tension only resolving when these outsiders learn how to participate in or appreciate the dominant religious tradition. At their worst, these movies traffic in bigoted stereotypes at a time when anti-Semitic hate crimes are on the rise. I, for one, would prefer to have been overlooked by the network than handed down insulting content that treats me as an obstacle to someone else's celebration.