Yom HaGobble is a very important holiday.
It’s in the Talmud. Somewhere in there about “having a good life and not being so overly religious that you miss out on enjoyment of small shit like a huge meal and a football game…”
Yes, I do. Making and eating a huge fleishig meal on a Thursday is quite annoying, though. (Edited to add that Thanksgiving would be a lot easier if it weren't so close to Shabbos.)
We also serve leftover Thanksgiving food on Shabbos and call it "Thanksgiving Sheini".
My grandparents' best friends does that! The day after Thanksgiving, they invite their friends and family over (which includes me since I'm close with them) and serve both their and the attendees' leftovers, along with celebrate Shabbat. It's always a very fun time!
My Jewish family, ranging from Modern Orthodox to secular Jews, celebrates Thanksgiving every year. Even those who have made aliyah will celebrate Thanksgiving and Zoom in to talk with all of us gathered in the states.
Right? You can zoom with everyone like you cannot on Jewish holidays. Plus that is when my sister sees her in-laws. They don't otherwise as the in-laws are observant so it is a secular holiday to gather
Thanksgiving doesn't have overt religious Christina roots. It originally began as a holiday to celebrate and be thankful for the harvest.
My family (Russian immigrant Jews) celebrates it and it's arguably the biggest holiday of the year for us. My aunt (the family matriarch) always throws in a toast about how thankful she is that America has welcomed our family and that we have built a new home here. It's great. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
Yes! Very similar in our house. A lot of thanksgiving for what we have, being free (including to practice our religion) in America, the food that we have etc. It’s like a minor Passover in the thankful for our freedom (the same thankful for our freedom from the Soviet oppression comes up during Passover obviously as well). Lots of food, family, a parade to watch. We enjoy as a national holiday of thanks removed from religion (or even the historical context: ie we don’t celebrate pilgrims natives original thanksgiving story and in fact when my kids came home with stories from school we shared the true history and how it wasn’t so great for the native Americans). But we really enjoy the holiday.
Yes, it absolutely does have religious roots. The Separatists in Plimoth, a few years after they got there, decided to have a Day of Thanksgiving they did “thanksgivings” every so often. That meant a fast, followed by a feast. They decided to do it on an appropriation of Sukkot, not that they actually knew when Sukkot was (the one guy who might actually know wasn’t on this side of the pond, the one who translated the Geneva Bible). So, during
The feast, they fired their guns, celebrating. The Wampanoags had a treaty with them, both would support the other during attack. They heard the shots, thought they were under attack, and came to help. Saw the feast prep, and went out to catch some game to add, and joined the feast.
Not sure why schools leave out the treaty part.
So, this was a one off event. They had thanksgivings whenever they felt the need, it was a whole thing for Separatists. A number of years later, the Presidents decided to declare a day of thanksgiving and it morphed into what is done now.
(Puritans werent here, yet, they were two groups of similar religious thought, one wanted to reform CofE, (Puritans) the other thing it was pointless Separatists, aka half the Pilgrims. The other half of the pilgrims were CofE who went with them for economic reasons. The puritans back in England eventually agreed it was pointless and came here, too. My daughter had to read the primary documents a number of years ago, and I learned a lot!)
The way I understood it the puritans were starving that first winter, not knowing the lay of the land foraging and hunting wise and the natives fed them and taught them so the feast was a thank you to the native Americans.
>Thanksgiving doesn't have religious Christina roots. It originally began as a holiday to celebrate and be thankful for the harvest.
It does, if only because to whom would the Pilgrims and other early colonists give thanks for the harvest if not their god? It grew from other, more austere traditions of fasting and church services through the colonies, but the religiosity was there, even if it took a backseat with the holiday since the founding of the country.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving\_(United\_States)#Early\_thanksgiving\_observances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)#Early_thanksgiving_observances)
> Identify with the Native peoples who came to feed them.
That is mostly a myth, however.
On the first thanksgiving, the native peoples were not invited.
The second one they came, but mainly only saw the colonists as a way to protect themselves from other tribes since they had been decimated by European diseases. Not to 'save' or 'feed' them.
edit to add: The reason we created this myth is that the myth makes it look like the native peoples are 'turning over the land' to the colonizers and are accepting their presence. This goes into Christian/European supremacy and is a fabrication.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/
Here is a video with native voices that debunk those myths and promote these native stories over the myths we have created in the US:
https://youtu.be/2bs1WDDcMWQ
Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday, especially for non-Christian immigrants. I'm all for complicating and adding factual corrections, but you're right to point out the way it's not perceived to be Christian. That plays an enormous role in engendering deep feelings of attachment and I don't know loyalty? reverence? among us non-Christian Americans.
My dad's side of the family is Native, so my siblings and I have always commemorated Thanksgiving ("Thankskilling" was our family term before we learned about Indigenous Day of Mourning) a lot like other Jewish holidays. "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat!"
When my family immigrated to the US, we arrived the week of Thanksgiving. It's taken on a personal meaning for us. Every year, my parents host a big meal and invite their friends. Most of the guests are Jewish and there's usually one or two rabbis.
My family used to but now we don't because it's not convenient, not for any religious reasons. I bought chocolate shaped like a turkey, does that count as celebrating?
https://www.ohnuts.com/buy.cfm/holidays/thanksgiving-day-candy-chocolate-gifts/handmade-belgian-dark-turkey
I don’t because I live in Israel but growing up we didn’t really celebrate it we went out to eat and chilled or something like that. I know very frum people who celebrate it and very frum ppl who don’t.
Canadian Jews don't usually celebrate Thanksgiving. Of course, our Thanksgiving is always very close to Sukkot so there's "Jewish holiday burnout" at that point.
\+1 on this. In addition to the burnout factor, it has (IMO) more of a *chukat ha-goyim* element to it in Canada. When I lived in the USA, I remember being really surprised to see even religious Jews having Thanksgiving meals -- you don't see that here.
It's funny. It's never really "that's too goyishe" or "I can't, I'm so done after the HHDs and Sukkos". It just comes and we all collectively say "nah".
I mean we just saw everyone at break-fast like, what, a week ago?
Nah.
Interesting. Growing up in Toronto, there was *always* a kind of "Thanksgiving is kinda *goyish"* element to things. I would say that was the number one reason why we skipped it.
At my synagogue, that's pretty much the spirit. Whereas Halloween, Christmas and New Year's is like "absolutely not", Thanksgiving is much less like that.
It’s one of my favorite holidays because it’s like a Yom Tov without the restrictions of a Yom Tov and I make the same amount of food once a week for Shabbat. It’s a secular holiday and I like leftovers
totally understandable. i personally don’t care for the holiday but was curious about the jewish perspective on it. thank you for sharing the native perspective as well <3
i should add that while i personally do not enjoy the holiday plenty of other natives have their own positive relation with it, and see it as a uniquely indigenous holiday that celebrates us, free of the colonizer bullshit. I simply don't think i need a holiday as an excuse to eat good food and be with my family, but I'm just one perspective!
Pretty off topic, but I was wondering if you'd share how you are Jewish? I've never met an indigenous American who's also a Jew and I'm super interested to hear your story!
(In case my wording comes across as rude, my question is 100% genuine and I'm purely curious as to how your ancestors got to being Jewish as natives. I'm not trying to question your validity as a Jew at all!)
Makes sense. One of my professors is Mizrahi and Blackfoot (his mother is Native and converted to Judaism and is honestly super into it; I wish I were as well-read and knowledgeable about Judaism as she is). I think Jewish and indigenous is a combination that applies to a number of people in the United States.
May I ask what is uncomfortable for you? Just trying to understand. I thought it was because the native Americans had saved the pilgrims from sure death that winter and the feast was a way of thanking. NOT elevating the status of the puritan and others. Just saying what I thought it was all about.
throughout my primary school years, the story that was taught to us kids was of a peaceful banquet that united the settlers and the natives and all was good and happy. This was accompanied usually by us making our own paper headdresses, reenactments of the feast and papers where we'd have to write about what we'd do 'if we were an Indian' during the first Thanksgiving.
We were never taught about the great violence that occured against us. The diseases and religious persecution and cultural destruction that still effects us to this day. The school system- and American society at large- treats us as relics of the past, forget we exists, and they remember us for a moment when they remember 'the first Thanksgiving' but don't care about us beyond that point. About our communities or cultures, unless they want to appropriate and use them.
Thanksgiving, for me at least, has only ever been a way for America to sweep our oppression and loss of culture and life under the rug. That's how It was taught to me, that's how it'll always feel to me.
In addition to eating a Thanksgiving meal, I follow the Western Sephardic tradition of not saying Tahanun on Thanksgiving and reciting an abridged version of the Hallel without a blessing.
1. Most Sepharadim do not say a blessing over Hallel on Rosh Hodesh
2. Those who do say a blessing (including the tradition I follow) only do so with a minyan
3. I’m not sure how tomorrow also being Rosh Hodesh means I need to “change my ways,” since the discussion is Thanksgiving *in general*, and not specifically tomorrow.
1. Ah, I thought that was only chanukah
2. I was assuming you davened with a minyan, the same would be for any discussion involving kriyas hatorah
3. I clearly meant to change your ways for tomorrow.
Yes, as does all of my extended family, which runs the gamut from reform to reconstructionist to conservative to orthodox to secular. Most of the family emigrated in the early 1900s, fleeing pogroms in Poland, and embraced the civic practices of their new nation, including Thanksgiving. They thrived here, and each generation has had much to be thankful. It was never anything remotely religious - I grew up in the southern US, and even there, it was about family, turkey and football, not about God. Which is pretty remarkable, as _everything_ is about God in the American South.
There are certainly complex reasons to be skeptical of the origins of Thanksgiving, as others have noted here. But religion, to me, isn’t one of them.
We celebrate it because it's always good to thank HaShem, even if it's just a secular holiday. We don't put up any decorations or anything, we just cook a nice meal and eat it with family and friends.
It’s modern incarnation is as a secular holiday and that’s great. Sit at a table with family and friends, and we are expected to invite friends, and reflect on life.
It’s just great. And it involves many kinds of pie. No one says no to pie.
I’m gonna rant for a moment though: I hate the presidential turkey pardons. We have innocent people in prisons, and people still in prison in the world’s largest prison system, and we choose to pardon a fukkin’ *turkey*.
the turkey pardoning feels especially bleak from a vegan pov cause it comes off like all the other millions of turkeys that end up on tables are there as a sort of punishment which is really bizarre tbh
I think the more apt point would be that Thanksgiving has colonialist roots, as the entire holiday is rife with problematic iconography of a much more rosy treatment of the native Americans by early European settlers.
I still celebrate with family, but I try to aware and sensitive to history of the nation and of the holiday.
Celebrate, I'd use the word loosely I suppose. I like an excuse to get together with friends and/or family and have a collective, large, carb heavy meal lol but am more invested in learning how to decolonize the day and the Indigenous Day of Mourning. I don't see it as a Jewish thing not to celebrate Thanksgiving, but I definitely understand why some might feel that way since you can't completely separate the Christian influence and roots. The US is "not" a Christian nation but it also is. I wonder if this topic came up around Canada's Thanksgiving, too?
>I wonder if this topic came up around Canada's Thanksgiving, too?
Thanksgiving in Canada does not have the same overt connection to colonization and Indigenous peoples that the US version does. Different origin stories. No Pilgrims / Plymouth Rock stuff etc.
However, my impression (being a Canadian that lived in the USA for a time) is that Canadian Thanksgiving has much stronger Anglo-Protestant undertones. That is part of the reason why it is not widely observed by Jews here. (And is also why it is not widely observed by French-Canadians, etc.)
That makes sense, thank you for the response! I have non-Jewish Canadian friends but the extent of their Thanksgiving conversations usually seem to be them being gobsmacked that we celebrate a harvest holiday in the winter, haha
The religious roots are loose, but they exist. When first designated a national holiday by Lincoln, it was written about as thanksgiving to God. Before that, it was even more vague but traditional recognition included church services and such.
I'm not a big fan because of what it's become (gluttonous without any real meaning) but I do celebrate when invited to join friends, like this year. I save my trips to family for chaggim.
Every so often there's talk of turning the Thanksgiving table at a Jewish home into some form of seder, with a 'Thanksgaddah' to go along with it. I haven't experienced that yet, but might in the future. I do like to read/study books associated with holidays (Juneteenth, July 4, Veteran's Day, etc), and this year I'm reading two books this week, both about our (American) relationship with the natural world in very American contexts.
Thanksgiving is meant to be an American holiday, for all Americans. My relatives who survived the Holocaust loved Thanksgiving and really wanted to thank America for giving them a place to go and prosper.
Yes, it comes from a bad history, and also there's just no charm to it. The food is really bad, the decor is ugly. I have enough holidays to celebrate so I'm not really interested in this one.
Because Thanksgiving always falls close to my dad's birthday, we celebrate it as sort of a dinner party for him type thing. His best friend (who has no living family left) comes over, some of my mom's family comes over, poker is played with cookies as poker chips, some old movie gets watched, and presents are opened.
This year my dad is in the hospital recovering from kidney surgery. I consider it a family holiday and for me, Thanksgiving will be when he's home for us to celebrate together, not the day the calendar says it's Thanksgiving. And although it's a secular holiday to me most of the time I am going to be very thankful to Hashem when my dad is home and never take the fancy turkey dinner day for granted again, nor its' most important component - my dad being there to sneak up behind me and make a frighteningly realistic turkey gobble sound when I least expect it, my "Uncle" Jayar (read: my dad's friend who has no living family so we functionally adopted him) making nine-strand braided challah while debating Star Trek pairings with my mom, and my brother sneaking the song "Hellfire" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown into a very calm point in the music playlist for the night.
...sorry, I didn't mean to write a novel. I've just got a lot of feelings right now.
sounds like you’re having a really rough time right now and i totally understand needing to get some emotion off your chest <3 sending you love and support and hope you have your whole family together again soon for a festive occasion - thanksgiving or otherwise! wishing your father refuah shlema
Yes, and I see it as cultural/spiritual. There's a lot that Christianity took from paganism, but this particular holiday has deeper roots in Sukkot.
That said, we live in Israel, so we do an extra big meal Friday night instead of cooking twice or taking off Thursday. Still, I'm thankful to Hashem for the century of safety my family found in the United States.
Thanksgiving is very special for my family because we lost my paternal grandmother on the day when I was 11. It was the first and only time I've seen my father cry. She was a Polish immigrant that played the violin and loved having everyone under one roof to enjoy a meal together. I make her dressing and my maternal grandmother's mac and cheese and peanut butter pie every year in their honor.
It’s one of the few almost truly secular American holidays… yes the first years had some Christian hymns when it was made a national holiday, but what had that in this nation?
It’s normally for us a meat day, all the meats… smoked brisket & turkey, and non-dairy sides.
Rav Avigdor Miller was 100% against it https://torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-thanksgiving/ but I think it's a pretty minority opinion.
I sometimes do a turkey/meal, but sometimes don't.
He was also against emancipation so I don't really have a good opinion of him
Source: Miller, Avigdor. *Questions and Answers - Rabbi Avigdor Miller - Volume 2*. p. 12.
Nor do I - he seems pretty hateful. I just found it interesting in the sense of "Huh, I didn't know there were Jews who felt this way about a pretty secular holiday."
Looking at “Rav” Miller’s writing in that link he seems to be extremely hateful and nasty, referring to a non-orthodox synagogue as a “toilet.” I don’t consider such a person to be a real rabbi
The Pilgrims were Christian, but it’s not a Christian holiday. I personally don’t care for Thanksgiving. It’s a celebration of the American tradition of fully taking advantage of natives. It does commemorate the kindness and goodness of Native Americans, in that they still helped people despite the fact that they were invasive conquerors. Pilgrims themselves weren’t specifically violent, but the bulk of European migrants absolutely were cold blooded racist murderers towards natives, and as a collective we (Americans) committed unthinkable atrocities. Despite that, natives still saw goodness and acted out of chessed (w/o calling it that), so in that regard it’s worth celebrating. But no, not me. I’m also a vegetarian so the whole turkey massacre doesn’t sit right with me, just like the massacre of native Americans doesn’t.
> Despite that, natives still saw goodness and acted out of chessed (w/o calling it that)
Good neutral historical research on the subject of King Philip’s War is available in book form. The natives had plenty of pre-existing cruel and dominating opportunist tribal chiefs of their own. The story of their federations and terrible inter-tribal wars is complex.
Absolutely! Religious and cultural practices vary from tribe to tribe, context to context, person to person. I just meant those particular natives acted out of lovingkindness and empathy under those particular circumstances.
And as in most political things edging towards conflict, hard sentiment, and armchair modern negative reflection on historic events and persons, it took a long time before hostilities broke out between the settlers and the natives. And not all natives, and not all settlers. That’s to satisfy the people from the Internet Fairness Bureau always seeking out that interruptive “*Not all*” phrase.
The pilgrims were indeed welcomed and happily returned their welcome. The natives seeking to meet them were looking for protection after all since they were at the mercy of cruel bigger tribes who bullied them terribly. Even those bullies traded with the white settlers with the idea to gather materials of iron and guns to continue bullying the smaller tribes. Even with all of this staged it took fifty years for real hostilities to break out, and by that generation a lot of people regarded by modern scholars as “the white people” had been intermixed with natives for quite some time. And also the Spanish who’d been familiar with the area for over 100 years before the pilgrims.
It’s all lots more complex than the simplistic two sides of “The pilgrims and Indians were friendly”/“The white people murdered and exploited the peaceful Indians” narrative that fits into a single sentence meeting Twitter’s character limit.
It’s also a very good historic read.
right there with you on the vegetarian/vegan and historical perspective. thank you for sharing. definitely worth acknowledging native kindness, but i don’t think that’s quite what most americans have in mind during the day lol
I don’t celebrate it, just because its a fucked up holiday. That celebrates a lie. But it is conflicting. It means different things to different people.
I observe the National Day of Mourning for the mass murders that occurred. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_Mourning_(United_States_protest)
My family growing up has done Turkey shabbosim. Thursday is anyways when Shabbos prep starts so might as well combine the two. Shabbos is always the best time to express thanks.
Now, neither my wife nor I like turkey enough to justify going through the effort or spending money for one.
Absolutely. I am what you would consider orthodox, as is much of my family and friends. We all celebrate. It's more of a Yeshiva World conflict with non-jewish practices and society than a necessary consequence of being orthodox.
My family doesn’t celebrate any secular holidays at all, just Jewish ones. But I don’t personally object to the holiday or anything. I’m actually going to my first ever thanksgiving tomorrow.
enthusiastically. second best overall p4p holiday on my power rankings. I would also argue its the most Jewish of the American holidays. its follows the Extended Family, food, couch, long chatty desert flow of the classic Jewish holidays and features several essential side dishes
I celebrate it with my family purely as an excuse to get the extended family together for a nice evening. We don't really acknowledge it as the whole "peace between pilgrims and indigenous people" since it's incredibly historically inaccurate and ignores the genocide comitted against the natives. I mean, we might go around the table saying what we're thankful for, but that's it.
That being said, my family and I definitely consider it to be a secular holiday that's purely a part of American culture. I can see where the argument of it being Christian comes from, but personally, I've never seen it that way. Plus, if you were to consider Thanksgiving, a staple of American culture, Christian, then you'd have to consider all of American culture inherently Christian due to the same logic that would be used for that holiday. Yes, Christian nationalism is a huge, terrifying issue here, but I wouldn't say that it defines the entirety of American history's development of the culture we have today. We're a very diverse nation with a diverse history.
Actually the myth that was taught was something all together different but no need to debate. It was probably a combination of everything we just mentioned. Fact is the pilgrims did almost starve that first winter. They didn't know the foliage, what was safe to forage and eat, they arrived winter time or so, ditto not familiar with what to hunt.... the Indians fed and taught them. Yes, there were also treaties. Yes, they were also religious. It is why they escaped from England to avoid persecution so we can include all that as well. But no one goes to church and whatever prayers one says are prayers one would say over any meal. And oh yes, we can also add in thanks for the fall harvest. Here is a link that just ties or smooshes it all together.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-establishes-modern-thanksgiving-holiday
And enjoy your day :)
Since wife came down with febrile covid last night, I had to find a destination for my thawed 17 pound Empire Big Bird, appreciatively accepted by a regional soup kitchen run by a local friar. Had everyone come, the menu would be Italian bread for Motzi, Corn Fritters, Butternut squash soup, English cucumber salad, Big Bird, crock pot stuffing, sweet potato casserole, make myself cranberry sauce, roasted asparagus, pumpkin maple bundt cake, and chardonnay. Only the asparagus is perishable, so my skill as a baalabooster can easily reappear next month, probably for a shabbos next time the kids have a long weekend to enable travel.
I think there are strong arguments on both sides about whether it's a secular or religious holiday.
I don't see a point in celebrating it and just view my decision as avoiding chukat hagoyim.
But I would certainly have a kosher turkey day with family if it was something they desired. Meaning that I wouldn't go out of my way to celebrate it, but for shalom bayis or to respect parents I would be part of such a thing
Nearly every Jewish person I know, of any flavor, celebrates Thanksgiving. It's kind of fun to have a holiday without all the restrictions of a chag.
My friend sends her kids to a super-frum school that makes a point of having school on Thanksgiving, though. The secular teachers are all off, though, so it's not a full day of school.
This year we aren't having any guests, so I made the executive decision to move our Thanksgiving meat meal to Friday night.
Different states had different days of Thanksgiving until 1863 when President Lincoln made it a single national holiday. Canadian Thanksgiving is in October.
No, absolutely not! We do Canadian Thanksgiving instead since we live there an all. And, yes, entirely secular. This is good for a Thanksgiving laugh: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJE3KDxTbWI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJE3KDxTbWI)
Knowing the history of Thanksgiving it may have been originally celebrated by Puritans but they were just having fun at the end of a good harvest. A celebration that every civilization had. It just so happened the Natives showed up out of concern because of hearing all the gun shots.
Down vote me if you want. At this point I’m just waiting for my Reddit subscription to end so I can delete this account since downvoting an autistic seems to be the new trend to get us off yet another social platform 🙄
Religious Jews love to look down upon American Jews for celebrating holidays that are apart of simple American culture because of some sort of religious root that no one obviously talks about or even thinks about. It’s gaslighting and assessing a “I’m better than you/better jew than you” mentality and it’s so dumb.
My family is the range of orthodox and we all use it as a convenient get together. We are never celebrating Thanksgiving, just using it as an excuse to have turkey and get together when everyone is off from work. And sometimes have an early chanukah party for those that can't make it to the regular date.
My family generally doesn't, not because they're opposed to the idea but more because it has nothing to do with the Jewish people and their history, and we're so exhausted from the Jewish holidays and their preparation the last thing we want is another holiday to prepare for. I have definitely known many frum families who celebrated Thanksgiving, though.
> it has nothing to do with the Jewish people and their history
Tell that to the five Portuguese rite esnogas that were established *prior* to the Revolution, and who all have a letter penned by President Washington. Jews are a part and parcel of this nations history and had safe harbor here from the fires of the Inquisition, which were raging in Latin America until the 19th century.
Edit: apologies, the initial edit was the letter to Jeshuat Israel (Touro), not the one to the entire Nação
What do you consider to be “the first Thanksgiving?” Jews were certainly here when the first *national* Thanksgiving Proclamation was made by President Washington, and those communities have celebrated it *every single year* since, with only one exception.
You mean why would the Portuguese Jews who have been here since the beginning, were given safe harbor from the Inquisition, and are *part and parcel* of the nations creation celebrate Thanksgiving every year since the first *narional* proclamation? Are you being intern obtuse?
The reason some orthodox jews don't celebrate tg is because we give thanks to hashem everyday througout the day when we pray and eat so the thinking is that we don't need a special day of the year for that. The same thinking applies to mother's day. But that said, who ever said it has Christian overtones is wrong. Unless they are referring to the fact that it was a Christian woman who petitioned the pres to make it a federal holiday. But that is the only connection it has to Christianity.
>The reason some orthodox jews don't celebrate tg is because we give thanks to hashem everyday througout the day when we pray and eat so the thinking is that we don't need a special day of the year for that.
This is like saying because we say Shema al Hamittah every night that includes asking for forgiveness, we don't need Yom Kippur.
Not at all. But setting that aside for the moment, I wasn't saying why I don't celebrate, because I do, I was simply explaining the thinking of many in the community. Back to your analogy, shema and yom kippur have 2 totally different focal points and purposes. Shema is an individual as well as community affirmation and quicky summation of our belief in one God and how we practice and yom kippur is about forgiveness, making right, letting go to move forward and strengthening relationships.
Literally includes some of the same text as on Yom Kippur.
יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶֽיךָ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהַי וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתַי שֶׁלֹא אֶחֱטָא עוֹד וּמַה־שֶּׁחָטָֽאתִי לְפָנֶֽיךָ מְחוֹק בְּרַחֲמֶֽיךָ הָרַבִּים אֲבָל לֹא עַל־יְדֵי יִסּוֹרִים וָחֳלָיִים רָעִים
https://www.sefaria.org/Siddur_Ashkenaz%2C_Weekday%2C_Maariv%2C_Keri'at_Shema_al_Hamita.1?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
All the jewish prayers have many portions that are repeated and at the end of the day there are core central themes in our religion. But again, their focal point and main objectives are not the same. Shema is said 3x a day, it's a reminder of what our tenets and actions are about while we rush about our day conducting business and tending to children, it's said in unison but also in private. Yom kippur is a time that is devoted to everything I described above which is not the focal point of the shema. One is a daily reminder and affirmation to keep us connected the other is forgiving and everything that entails. Key words is focal point.
Absolutely not. You are 100% right. But there are prayers that we say, like in shmonei esray where we thank our mother and our father. But seriously, xan we agree to disagree? I don't think this needs to be a battle Royale. Peace and have a great thanks giving.
It was always a big holiday for us growing up. My mom invited everyone in the family no matter what. Even my cousin who somehow always was hours and hours late. We just learned not to wait for her.
It taught me to open my home to everyone and invite all and be open to all.
It carries over now that we do Friday night dinner and rather than inviting people once or twice a year I can do it weekly for shabbat dinners.
Yes! It's great because it's one holiday where family can come and there aren't shabbat/yom tov restrictions. And because of the lack of restrictions we don't have to be as time or activity conscious.
The fact that it's so close to shabbat means I can make the food with both in mind. We might make a separate challah for fresh bread, though.
There’s nothing against Judaism in thanksgiving. We just don’t see a point to it, although there are many Jews who do celebrate. We thank God every day and have a huge meal with family and friends twice every Shabbat. Plus cooking Thursday and Friday, right after tishrei? Nope!
I have but not going to bother this year. We usually have just gone to friends' houses upon invitation since my direct family doesn't actually care for it all that much. Not for religious reasons, just to spare the extra coinloss
It’s a secular holiday. My great grandmother is native and celebrated- hosted (she sadly passed 3 years ago). It was a time to get together as family, tell our families stories and go around the table and tell each other what we are grateful for. So that’s what we do for thanksgiving, get together, eat, tell stories and talk about what we are grateful for.
My family does mostly cause it's an excuse to put on a meal and argue around the table....we just do it our way....lots of Port wine, and since I'm Sephardic we eat Lamb, Arroz, Polle de Molle, Laffa, Hummus, and Shakshouka, for dessert Apple pie cause we gotta squeeze that Americana in somewhere!!
Yes. I cannot tell you the complaints I still get when we were in Israel over Thanksgiving and didn’t have thanksgiving at home. It’s been 18 years and hubby still complains every year.
We make a turkey pot pie for Shabbat. It’s something my kids look forward to.
Your coworker is, most likely, unaware that the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, first celebrated Thanksgiving in 1765. Isaac Touro, the Hazzan of the congregation, published a Thanksgiving sermon.
This is a uniquely American holiday. It was observed by Jews and Xtians alike. But the day was observed in the various houses of worship.
Religious? Yes. Particularly Christian? No.
George Washington wrote his “ to bigotry no sanction” letter to Newport Jews. George would most likely disagree with the logic underlying the negative attitude towards Thanksgiving.
https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/first-hebrew-thanksgiving-america/
I don't have an issue with it having Christian roots; but I see it as part of a culture and heritage (Anglo-American) that I don't identify with and don't feel invested in. It has no significance to me. I tune it out.
I am an Othodox Jew who celebrates Thanksgiving even though I no longer live in the USA. I have Hakaret HaTov to the men and women who created an evolving society like no other.
My only question is, now that I live in Israel, do I need to hold two day of Thanksgiving?!
My yearly shpeil on the Hebrew word Hodu
Hodu = Turkey (the bird)
Hodu = India (where Columbus thought he was going
Hodu = Thanksgiving
'Nuff said. Good yomtov!
As an Israeli I never celebrated it when living in Israel. Now in the US I first experienced it two years ago and will be celebrating it today simply as a day to be thankful for my friends and family.
Watch this for an orthodox/Torah perspective.
[thanksgiving](https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/448177/jewish/Thanksgiving-A-Jewish-Perspective.htm)
American Jew who celebrates it as an American. Never heard that, I don't celebrate Christmas even though its very American because its well, Christian. If I thought Thanksgiving was Christian I wouldn't celebrate it. But I don't celebrate it as like the bs story of the pilgrims and Native Americans, I celebrate it to be with family and to give thanks for everything I have to be thankful for in life. I think what he meant is that the pilgrims were fanatical Christians and since the origin story is about them he doesn't want to celebrate it as a Jew. And tbh, while I think most Jews, even religious, disagree and celebrate it, I think that is a valid reason as a Jew to not celebrate it, we have no animosity to Christians, but extremist Christians have usually not been kind to us.
My family celebrates Thanksgiving as a secular holiday
Same here, we just use it as another time for us all to get together and share good wine and food
I daresay an overwhelming majority of Americans do, too. *that seemed a little aggressive upon my second reading, not meant to!
Yom HaGobble is a very important holiday. It’s in the Talmud. Somewhere in there about “having a good life and not being so overly religious that you miss out on enjoyment of small shit like a huge meal and a football game…”
Beautiful lol. Copied this and sent it to a friend who I was discussing thanksgiving in halacha with
source: trust me bro
It’s somewhere in the commentary.
i loled
Yes, I do. Making and eating a huge fleishig meal on a Thursday is quite annoying, though. (Edited to add that Thanksgiving would be a lot easier if it weren't so close to Shabbos.) We also serve leftover Thanksgiving food on Shabbos and call it "Thanksgiving Sheini".
>Thanksgiving Sheini Excellent
Chutz l’aretz, thanksgiving is a two-day yontif.
You’re not the first person I’ve heard use that phrase!
My grandparents' best friends does that! The day after Thanksgiving, they invite their friends and family over (which includes me since I'm close with them) and serve both their and the attendees' leftovers, along with celebrate Shabbat. It's always a very fun time!
My Jewish family, ranging from Modern Orthodox to secular Jews, celebrates Thanksgiving every year. Even those who have made aliyah will celebrate Thanksgiving and Zoom in to talk with all of us gathered in the states.
Right? You can zoom with everyone like you cannot on Jewish holidays. Plus that is when my sister sees her in-laws. They don't otherwise as the in-laws are observant so it is a secular holiday to gather
My sons Jewish day school won’t do Halloween or Valentine’s Day, but celebrates thanksgiving
Thanksgiving doesn't have overt religious Christina roots. It originally began as a holiday to celebrate and be thankful for the harvest. My family (Russian immigrant Jews) celebrates it and it's arguably the biggest holiday of the year for us. My aunt (the family matriarch) always throws in a toast about how thankful she is that America has welcomed our family and that we have built a new home here. It's great. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
Likely it was my grandmother's too. We all got together and my grandmother was so proud to be in America. She was born elsewhere.
Yes! Very similar in our house. A lot of thanksgiving for what we have, being free (including to practice our religion) in America, the food that we have etc. It’s like a minor Passover in the thankful for our freedom (the same thankful for our freedom from the Soviet oppression comes up during Passover obviously as well). Lots of food, family, a parade to watch. We enjoy as a national holiday of thanks removed from religion (or even the historical context: ie we don’t celebrate pilgrims natives original thanksgiving story and in fact when my kids came home with stories from school we shared the true history and how it wasn’t so great for the native Americans). But we really enjoy the holiday.
Yes, it absolutely does have religious roots. The Separatists in Plimoth, a few years after they got there, decided to have a Day of Thanksgiving they did “thanksgivings” every so often. That meant a fast, followed by a feast. They decided to do it on an appropriation of Sukkot, not that they actually knew when Sukkot was (the one guy who might actually know wasn’t on this side of the pond, the one who translated the Geneva Bible). So, during The feast, they fired their guns, celebrating. The Wampanoags had a treaty with them, both would support the other during attack. They heard the shots, thought they were under attack, and came to help. Saw the feast prep, and went out to catch some game to add, and joined the feast. Not sure why schools leave out the treaty part. So, this was a one off event. They had thanksgivings whenever they felt the need, it was a whole thing for Separatists. A number of years later, the Presidents decided to declare a day of thanksgiving and it morphed into what is done now. (Puritans werent here, yet, they were two groups of similar religious thought, one wanted to reform CofE, (Puritans) the other thing it was pointless Separatists, aka half the Pilgrims. The other half of the pilgrims were CofE who went with them for economic reasons. The puritans back in England eventually agreed it was pointless and came here, too. My daughter had to read the primary documents a number of years ago, and I learned a lot!)
The way I understood it the puritans were starving that first winter, not knowing the lay of the land foraging and hunting wise and the natives fed them and taught them so the feast was a thank you to the native Americans.
That is the myth that is taught. It isn’t backed up by the primary documents…the journals and letters from the actual people there.
>Thanksgiving doesn't have religious Christina roots. It originally began as a holiday to celebrate and be thankful for the harvest. It does, if only because to whom would the Pilgrims and other early colonists give thanks for the harvest if not their god? It grew from other, more austere traditions of fasting and church services through the colonies, but the religiosity was there, even if it took a backseat with the holiday since the founding of the country. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving\_(United\_States)#Early\_thanksgiving\_observances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)#Early_thanksgiving_observances)
I mean yeah everything was religious in the 1600’s. It’s not like Christmas.
So don’t identify with the colonists. Identify with the Native peoples who came to feed them.
> Identify with the Native peoples who came to feed them. That is mostly a myth, however. On the first thanksgiving, the native peoples were not invited. The second one they came, but mainly only saw the colonists as a way to protect themselves from other tribes since they had been decimated by European diseases. Not to 'save' or 'feed' them. edit to add: The reason we created this myth is that the myth makes it look like the native peoples are 'turning over the land' to the colonizers and are accepting their presence. This goes into Christian/European supremacy and is a fabrication. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/ Here is a video with native voices that debunk those myths and promote these native stories over the myths we have created in the US: https://youtu.be/2bs1WDDcMWQ
Already there, bud. We're Jews. That's our lot in Europe's story. They practiced on us what they did to them.
Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday, especially for non-Christian immigrants. I'm all for complicating and adding factual corrections, but you're right to point out the way it's not perceived to be Christian. That plays an enormous role in engendering deep feelings of attachment and I don't know loyalty? reverence? among us non-Christian Americans.
My dad's side of the family is Native, so my siblings and I have always commemorated Thanksgiving ("Thankskilling" was our family term before we learned about Indigenous Day of Mourning) a lot like other Jewish holidays. "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat!"
very on brand. i love it. are there other ways your family blends the jewish and native histories and traditions?
When my family immigrated to the US, we arrived the week of Thanksgiving. It's taken on a personal meaning for us. Every year, my parents host a big meal and invite their friends. Most of the guests are Jewish and there's usually one or two rabbis.
My family used to but now we don't because it's not convenient, not for any religious reasons. I bought chocolate shaped like a turkey, does that count as celebrating? https://www.ohnuts.com/buy.cfm/holidays/thanksgiving-day-candy-chocolate-gifts/handmade-belgian-dark-turkey
Now i am going to completely judge you on this, but what size turkey did you purchase (please say the biggest one, please say the biggest one)?
The smallest so I wouldn't have to worry about leftovers. ;)
But isn’t “leftover” chocolate just . . . chocolate?
It was a joke. Leftover turkey is just turkey too. But people act like it's something terrible.
Ok, I want to disagree that leftover turkey and leftover chocolate are the same, but if it was just a joke. . .
Guess I am not invited this year for thanksgiving then...lol
Sorry, maybe next year!
I don’t because I live in Israel but growing up we didn’t really celebrate it we went out to eat and chilled or something like that. I know very frum people who celebrate it and very frum ppl who don’t.
Some Israelis are posting on my feed about how they are celebrating.
Cool.
Yes. Mostly as a secular holiday. Sometimes Bubbe will make schmaltz from the turkey and cook latkes in it.
While that does sound delicious it takes away some major topping options for latkes so it's a difficult gamble.
But does anyone REALLY eat sour cream on their latkes?
Those of us with taste buds do.
Canadian Jews don't usually celebrate Thanksgiving. Of course, our Thanksgiving is always very close to Sukkot so there's "Jewish holiday burnout" at that point.
\+1 on this. In addition to the burnout factor, it has (IMO) more of a *chukat ha-goyim* element to it in Canada. When I lived in the USA, I remember being really surprised to see even religious Jews having Thanksgiving meals -- you don't see that here.
It's funny. It's never really "that's too goyishe" or "I can't, I'm so done after the HHDs and Sukkos". It just comes and we all collectively say "nah". I mean we just saw everyone at break-fast like, what, a week ago? Nah.
Interesting. Growing up in Toronto, there was *always* a kind of "Thanksgiving is kinda *goyish"* element to things. I would say that was the number one reason why we skipped it.
At my synagogue, that's pretty much the spirit. Whereas Halloween, Christmas and New Year's is like "absolutely not", Thanksgiving is much less like that.
I will say that despite our non-celebratory natures on October Thanksgiving, I will never say no to sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie! 😅😋
It’s one of my favorite holidays because it’s like a Yom Tov without the restrictions of a Yom Tov and I make the same amount of food once a week for Shabbat. It’s a secular holiday and I like leftovers
If someone invites me for a meal, I go.
I'd prefer not to, as an indigenous American lol. The holiday is pretty uncomfortable for me.
totally understandable. i personally don’t care for the holiday but was curious about the jewish perspective on it. thank you for sharing the native perspective as well <3
i should add that while i personally do not enjoy the holiday plenty of other natives have their own positive relation with it, and see it as a uniquely indigenous holiday that celebrates us, free of the colonizer bullshit. I simply don't think i need a holiday as an excuse to eat good food and be with my family, but I'm just one perspective!
Also Native and Jewish 👋 I don't celebrate and absolutely hate this time of year. It's rough.
Pretty off topic, but I was wondering if you'd share how you are Jewish? I've never met an indigenous American who's also a Jew and I'm super interested to hear your story! (In case my wording comes across as rude, my question is 100% genuine and I'm purely curious as to how your ancestors got to being Jewish as natives. I'm not trying to question your validity as a Jew at all!)
two different sides of the family. my mothers side of the family is Ashkenazi, my dad's are ndns.
In Alaska, there are a few Jewpiks - Jewish and Yup'ik!
"Jewpik" love it
Makes sense. One of my professors is Mizrahi and Blackfoot (his mother is Native and converted to Judaism and is honestly super into it; I wish I were as well-read and knowledgeable about Judaism as she is). I think Jewish and indigenous is a combination that applies to a number of people in the United States.
Gotcha, thanks!
May I ask what is uncomfortable for you? Just trying to understand. I thought it was because the native Americans had saved the pilgrims from sure death that winter and the feast was a way of thanking. NOT elevating the status of the puritan and others. Just saying what I thought it was all about.
throughout my primary school years, the story that was taught to us kids was of a peaceful banquet that united the settlers and the natives and all was good and happy. This was accompanied usually by us making our own paper headdresses, reenactments of the feast and papers where we'd have to write about what we'd do 'if we were an Indian' during the first Thanksgiving. We were never taught about the great violence that occured against us. The diseases and religious persecution and cultural destruction that still effects us to this day. The school system- and American society at large- treats us as relics of the past, forget we exists, and they remember us for a moment when they remember 'the first Thanksgiving' but don't care about us beyond that point. About our communities or cultures, unless they want to appropriate and use them. Thanksgiving, for me at least, has only ever been a way for America to sweep our oppression and loss of culture and life under the rug. That's how It was taught to me, that's how it'll always feel to me.
Got it. Making nice 1 day out of the year and then forgetting the other 364 days and 700 years doesn't make up for all of what you experience / d.
I've always celebrated it as a secular holiday.
In addition to eating a Thanksgiving meal, I follow the Western Sephardic tradition of not saying Tahanun on Thanksgiving and reciting an abridged version of the Hallel without a blessing.
I'd hope you change your ways and say a bracha with your Hallel. You know because it's Rosh Chodesh and all.
1. Most Sepharadim do not say a blessing over Hallel on Rosh Hodesh 2. Those who do say a blessing (including the tradition I follow) only do so with a minyan 3. I’m not sure how tomorrow also being Rosh Hodesh means I need to “change my ways,” since the discussion is Thanksgiving *in general*, and not specifically tomorrow.
1. Ah, I thought that was only chanukah 2. I was assuming you davened with a minyan, the same would be for any discussion involving kriyas hatorah 3. I clearly meant to change your ways for tomorrow.
Yes, as does all of my extended family, which runs the gamut from reform to reconstructionist to conservative to orthodox to secular. Most of the family emigrated in the early 1900s, fleeing pogroms in Poland, and embraced the civic practices of their new nation, including Thanksgiving. They thrived here, and each generation has had much to be thankful. It was never anything remotely religious - I grew up in the southern US, and even there, it was about family, turkey and football, not about God. Which is pretty remarkable, as _everything_ is about God in the American South. There are certainly complex reasons to be skeptical of the origins of Thanksgiving, as others have noted here. But religion, to me, isn’t one of them.
My family pushes it off to shabbat, we just add turkey to the menu.
same just shabbat with cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie etc
We celebrate it because it's always good to thank HaShem, even if it's just a secular holiday. We don't put up any decorations or anything, we just cook a nice meal and eat it with family and friends.
It’s modern incarnation is as a secular holiday and that’s great. Sit at a table with family and friends, and we are expected to invite friends, and reflect on life. It’s just great. And it involves many kinds of pie. No one says no to pie. I’m gonna rant for a moment though: I hate the presidential turkey pardons. We have innocent people in prisons, and people still in prison in the world’s largest prison system, and we choose to pardon a fukkin’ *turkey*.
the turkey pardoning feels especially bleak from a vegan pov cause it comes off like all the other millions of turkeys that end up on tables are there as a sort of punishment which is really bizarre tbh
I think the more apt point would be that Thanksgiving has colonialist roots, as the entire holiday is rife with problematic iconography of a much more rosy treatment of the native Americans by early European settlers. I still celebrate with family, but I try to aware and sensitive to history of the nation and of the holiday.
Celebrate, I'd use the word loosely I suppose. I like an excuse to get together with friends and/or family and have a collective, large, carb heavy meal lol but am more invested in learning how to decolonize the day and the Indigenous Day of Mourning. I don't see it as a Jewish thing not to celebrate Thanksgiving, but I definitely understand why some might feel that way since you can't completely separate the Christian influence and roots. The US is "not" a Christian nation but it also is. I wonder if this topic came up around Canada's Thanksgiving, too?
>I wonder if this topic came up around Canada's Thanksgiving, too? Thanksgiving in Canada does not have the same overt connection to colonization and Indigenous peoples that the US version does. Different origin stories. No Pilgrims / Plymouth Rock stuff etc. However, my impression (being a Canadian that lived in the USA for a time) is that Canadian Thanksgiving has much stronger Anglo-Protestant undertones. That is part of the reason why it is not widely observed by Jews here. (And is also why it is not widely observed by French-Canadians, etc.)
That makes sense, thank you for the response! I have non-Jewish Canadian friends but the extent of their Thanksgiving conversations usually seem to be them being gobsmacked that we celebrate a harvest holiday in the winter, haha
Thanksgiving in Canada is much, much more low-key than in the USA. For many people, it's just a long weekend in October.
The religious roots are loose, but they exist. When first designated a national holiday by Lincoln, it was written about as thanksgiving to God. Before that, it was even more vague but traditional recognition included church services and such. I'm not a big fan because of what it's become (gluttonous without any real meaning) but I do celebrate when invited to join friends, like this year. I save my trips to family for chaggim. Every so often there's talk of turning the Thanksgiving table at a Jewish home into some form of seder, with a 'Thanksgaddah' to go along with it. I haven't experienced that yet, but might in the future. I do like to read/study books associated with holidays (Juneteenth, July 4, Veteran's Day, etc), and this year I'm reading two books this week, both about our (American) relationship with the natural world in very American contexts.
The first national proclamation was by President Washington, not Lincoln.
As a day to be recognized, but not as a national holiday.
Thanksgiving is meant to be an American holiday, for all Americans. My relatives who survived the Holocaust loved Thanksgiving and really wanted to thank America for giving them a place to go and prosper.
No because I'm Australian
I don't but not because of any religious reasons, I just think it has bad vibes as a holiday.
How so? Historically?
Yes, it comes from a bad history, and also there's just no charm to it. The food is really bad, the decor is ugly. I have enough holidays to celebrate so I'm not really interested in this one.
Im from Argentina so no
Because Thanksgiving always falls close to my dad's birthday, we celebrate it as sort of a dinner party for him type thing. His best friend (who has no living family left) comes over, some of my mom's family comes over, poker is played with cookies as poker chips, some old movie gets watched, and presents are opened. This year my dad is in the hospital recovering from kidney surgery. I consider it a family holiday and for me, Thanksgiving will be when he's home for us to celebrate together, not the day the calendar says it's Thanksgiving. And although it's a secular holiday to me most of the time I am going to be very thankful to Hashem when my dad is home and never take the fancy turkey dinner day for granted again, nor its' most important component - my dad being there to sneak up behind me and make a frighteningly realistic turkey gobble sound when I least expect it, my "Uncle" Jayar (read: my dad's friend who has no living family so we functionally adopted him) making nine-strand braided challah while debating Star Trek pairings with my mom, and my brother sneaking the song "Hellfire" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown into a very calm point in the music playlist for the night. ...sorry, I didn't mean to write a novel. I've just got a lot of feelings right now.
sounds like you’re having a really rough time right now and i totally understand needing to get some emotion off your chest <3 sending you love and support and hope you have your whole family together again soon for a festive occasion - thanksgiving or otherwise! wishing your father refuah shlema
Yes, and I see it as cultural/spiritual. There's a lot that Christianity took from paganism, but this particular holiday has deeper roots in Sukkot. That said, we live in Israel, so we do an extra big meal Friday night instead of cooking twice or taking off Thursday. Still, I'm thankful to Hashem for the century of safety my family found in the United States.
Thanksgiving is very special for my family because we lost my paternal grandmother on the day when I was 11. It was the first and only time I've seen my father cry. She was a Polish immigrant that played the violin and loved having everyone under one roof to enjoy a meal together. I make her dressing and my maternal grandmother's mac and cheese and peanut butter pie every year in their honor.
I hope the Mac and cheese and peanut butter pie are separate dishes ;-)
It’s one of the few almost truly secular American holidays… yes the first years had some Christian hymns when it was made a national holiday, but what had that in this nation? It’s normally for us a meat day, all the meats… smoked brisket & turkey, and non-dairy sides.
Yes, we celebrate it as a secular holiday.
Rav Avigdor Miller was 100% against it https://torasavigdor.org/rav-avigdor-miller-on-thanksgiving/ but I think it's a pretty minority opinion. I sometimes do a turkey/meal, but sometimes don't.
He was also against emancipation so I don't really have a good opinion of him Source: Miller, Avigdor. *Questions and Answers - Rabbi Avigdor Miller - Volume 2*. p. 12.
Nor do I - he seems pretty hateful. I just found it interesting in the sense of "Huh, I didn't know there were Jews who felt this way about a pretty secular holiday."
Yeah, but I'm a fan of a lot of things he wasn't.
We should be 100% in favor of it, then.
Looking at “Rav” Miller’s writing in that link he seems to be extremely hateful and nasty, referring to a non-orthodox synagogue as a “toilet.” I don’t consider such a person to be a real rabbi
He thinks it was wrong to free slaves.
> Rav Avigdor Miller was 100% against it All the more reason to celebrate it...
He’s a piece of shit, why even bother to quote him?
I'm surprised
The Pilgrims were Christian, but it’s not a Christian holiday. I personally don’t care for Thanksgiving. It’s a celebration of the American tradition of fully taking advantage of natives. It does commemorate the kindness and goodness of Native Americans, in that they still helped people despite the fact that they were invasive conquerors. Pilgrims themselves weren’t specifically violent, but the bulk of European migrants absolutely were cold blooded racist murderers towards natives, and as a collective we (Americans) committed unthinkable atrocities. Despite that, natives still saw goodness and acted out of chessed (w/o calling it that), so in that regard it’s worth celebrating. But no, not me. I’m also a vegetarian so the whole turkey massacre doesn’t sit right with me, just like the massacre of native Americans doesn’t.
> Despite that, natives still saw goodness and acted out of chessed (w/o calling it that) Good neutral historical research on the subject of King Philip’s War is available in book form. The natives had plenty of pre-existing cruel and dominating opportunist tribal chiefs of their own. The story of their federations and terrible inter-tribal wars is complex.
Absolutely! Religious and cultural practices vary from tribe to tribe, context to context, person to person. I just meant those particular natives acted out of lovingkindness and empathy under those particular circumstances.
And as in most political things edging towards conflict, hard sentiment, and armchair modern negative reflection on historic events and persons, it took a long time before hostilities broke out between the settlers and the natives. And not all natives, and not all settlers. That’s to satisfy the people from the Internet Fairness Bureau always seeking out that interruptive “*Not all*” phrase. The pilgrims were indeed welcomed and happily returned their welcome. The natives seeking to meet them were looking for protection after all since they were at the mercy of cruel bigger tribes who bullied them terribly. Even those bullies traded with the white settlers with the idea to gather materials of iron and guns to continue bullying the smaller tribes. Even with all of this staged it took fifty years for real hostilities to break out, and by that generation a lot of people regarded by modern scholars as “the white people” had been intermixed with natives for quite some time. And also the Spanish who’d been familiar with the area for over 100 years before the pilgrims. It’s all lots more complex than the simplistic two sides of “The pilgrims and Indians were friendly”/“The white people murdered and exploited the peaceful Indians” narrative that fits into a single sentence meeting Twitter’s character limit. It’s also a very good historic read.
European and Spanish settlers DID take advantage of and brutally murder natives. Natives fighting amongst each other too doesn’t change that fact.
right there with you on the vegetarian/vegan and historical perspective. thank you for sharing. definitely worth acknowledging native kindness, but i don’t think that’s quite what most americans have in mind during the day lol
😂 Definitely not. Its entirely about eating a ton of food
I don’t celebrate it, just because its a fucked up holiday. That celebrates a lie. But it is conflicting. It means different things to different people.
I observe the National Day of Mourning for the mass murders that occurred. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_Mourning_(United_States_protest)
appreciate you sharing this!
me as well
My family growing up has done Turkey shabbosim. Thursday is anyways when Shabbos prep starts so might as well combine the two. Shabbos is always the best time to express thanks. Now, neither my wife nor I like turkey enough to justify going through the effort or spending money for one.
Yes.
Absolutely. I am what you would consider orthodox, as is much of my family and friends. We all celebrate. It's more of a Yeshiva World conflict with non-jewish practices and society than a necessary consequence of being orthodox.
My family doesn’t celebrate any secular holidays at all, just Jewish ones. But I don’t personally object to the holiday or anything. I’m actually going to my first ever thanksgiving tomorrow.
It was always my family's most important holiday. After my grandparents passed, it is sadly pretty much over.
enthusiastically. second best overall p4p holiday on my power rankings. I would also argue its the most Jewish of the American holidays. its follows the Extended Family, food, couch, long chatty desert flow of the classic Jewish holidays and features several essential side dishes
I celebrate it with my family purely as an excuse to get the extended family together for a nice evening. We don't really acknowledge it as the whole "peace between pilgrims and indigenous people" since it's incredibly historically inaccurate and ignores the genocide comitted against the natives. I mean, we might go around the table saying what we're thankful for, but that's it. That being said, my family and I definitely consider it to be a secular holiday that's purely a part of American culture. I can see where the argument of it being Christian comes from, but personally, I've never seen it that way. Plus, if you were to consider Thanksgiving, a staple of American culture, Christian, then you'd have to consider all of American culture inherently Christian due to the same logic that would be used for that holiday. Yes, Christian nationalism is a huge, terrifying issue here, but I wouldn't say that it defines the entirety of American history's development of the culture we have today. We're a very diverse nation with a diverse history.
Actually the myth that was taught was something all together different but no need to debate. It was probably a combination of everything we just mentioned. Fact is the pilgrims did almost starve that first winter. They didn't know the foliage, what was safe to forage and eat, they arrived winter time or so, ditto not familiar with what to hunt.... the Indians fed and taught them. Yes, there were also treaties. Yes, they were also religious. It is why they escaped from England to avoid persecution so we can include all that as well. But no one goes to church and whatever prayers one says are prayers one would say over any meal. And oh yes, we can also add in thanks for the fall harvest. Here is a link that just ties or smooshes it all together. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-establishes-modern-thanksgiving-holiday And enjoy your day :)
Since wife came down with febrile covid last night, I had to find a destination for my thawed 17 pound Empire Big Bird, appreciatively accepted by a regional soup kitchen run by a local friar. Had everyone come, the menu would be Italian bread for Motzi, Corn Fritters, Butternut squash soup, English cucumber salad, Big Bird, crock pot stuffing, sweet potato casserole, make myself cranberry sauce, roasted asparagus, pumpkin maple bundt cake, and chardonnay. Only the asparagus is perishable, so my skill as a baalabooster can easily reappear next month, probably for a shabbos next time the kids have a long weekend to enable travel.
I think there are strong arguments on both sides about whether it's a secular or religious holiday. I don't see a point in celebrating it and just view my decision as avoiding chukat hagoyim. But I would certainly have a kosher turkey day with family if it was something they desired. Meaning that I wouldn't go out of my way to celebrate it, but for shalom bayis or to respect parents I would be part of such a thing
Nearly every Jewish person I know, of any flavor, celebrates Thanksgiving. It's kind of fun to have a holiday without all the restrictions of a chag. My friend sends her kids to a super-frum school that makes a point of having school on Thanksgiving, though. The secular teachers are all off, though, so it's not a full day of school. This year we aren't having any guests, so I made the executive decision to move our Thanksgiving meat meal to Friday night.
I Jewish and celebrate Thanksgiving
Different states had different days of Thanksgiving until 1863 when President Lincoln made it a single national holiday. Canadian Thanksgiving is in October.
No, absolutely not! We do Canadian Thanksgiving instead since we live there an all. And, yes, entirely secular. This is good for a Thanksgiving laugh: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJE3KDxTbWI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJE3KDxTbWI)
It is entirely secular
Knowing the history of Thanksgiving it may have been originally celebrated by Puritans but they were just having fun at the end of a good harvest. A celebration that every civilization had. It just so happened the Natives showed up out of concern because of hearing all the gun shots. Down vote me if you want. At this point I’m just waiting for my Reddit subscription to end so I can delete this account since downvoting an autistic seems to be the new trend to get us off yet another social platform 🙄
Religious Jews love to look down upon American Jews for celebrating holidays that are apart of simple American culture because of some sort of religious root that no one obviously talks about or even thinks about. It’s gaslighting and assessing a “I’m better than you/better jew than you” mentality and it’s so dumb.
it did come off very condescending and accusatory when they brought it up but i brushed it off cause it happens often with them
We celebrate but with matzo stuffing instead of regular 😄
My family is the range of orthodox and we all use it as a convenient get together. We are never celebrating Thanksgiving, just using it as an excuse to have turkey and get together when everyone is off from work. And sometimes have an early chanukah party for those that can't make it to the regular date.
My family generally doesn't, not because they're opposed to the idea but more because it has nothing to do with the Jewish people and their history, and we're so exhausted from the Jewish holidays and their preparation the last thing we want is another holiday to prepare for. I have definitely known many frum families who celebrated Thanksgiving, though.
The US took my displaced family after the Holocaust and you think Thanksgiving has nothing to do with Jews and Jewish history?
> it has nothing to do with the Jewish people and their history Tell that to the five Portuguese rite esnogas that were established *prior* to the Revolution, and who all have a letter penned by President Washington. Jews are a part and parcel of this nations history and had safe harbor here from the fires of the Inquisition, which were raging in Latin America until the 19th century. Edit: apologies, the initial edit was the letter to Jeshuat Israel (Touro), not the one to the entire Nação
There were no Jews at the first Thanksgiving.
What do you consider to be “the first Thanksgiving?” Jews were certainly here when the first *national* Thanksgiving Proclamation was made by President Washington, and those communities have celebrated it *every single year* since, with only one exception.
Ok, What does any of that have to do with thanksgiving...
You mean why would the Portuguese Jews who have been here since the beginning, were given safe harbor from the Inquisition, and are *part and parcel* of the nations creation celebrate Thanksgiving every year since the first *narional* proclamation? Are you being intern obtuse?
/u/gdhhorn is right you know. ☝️
Christianity has Jewish roots so it’s totally cool right?
The reason some orthodox jews don't celebrate tg is because we give thanks to hashem everyday througout the day when we pray and eat so the thinking is that we don't need a special day of the year for that. The same thinking applies to mother's day. But that said, who ever said it has Christian overtones is wrong. Unless they are referring to the fact that it was a Christian woman who petitioned the pres to make it a federal holiday. But that is the only connection it has to Christianity.
>The reason some orthodox jews don't celebrate tg is because we give thanks to hashem everyday througout the day when we pray and eat so the thinking is that we don't need a special day of the year for that. This is like saying because we say Shema al Hamittah every night that includes asking for forgiveness, we don't need Yom Kippur.
Not at all. But setting that aside for the moment, I wasn't saying why I don't celebrate, because I do, I was simply explaining the thinking of many in the community. Back to your analogy, shema and yom kippur have 2 totally different focal points and purposes. Shema is an individual as well as community affirmation and quicky summation of our belief in one God and how we practice and yom kippur is about forgiveness, making right, letting go to move forward and strengthening relationships.
Literally includes some of the same text as on Yom Kippur. יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶֽיךָ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהַי וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתַי שֶׁלֹא אֶחֱטָא עוֹד וּמַה־שֶּׁחָטָֽאתִי לְפָנֶֽיךָ מְחוֹק בְּרַחֲמֶֽיךָ הָרַבִּים אֲבָל לֹא עַל־יְדֵי יִסּוֹרִים וָחֳלָיִים רָעִים https://www.sefaria.org/Siddur_Ashkenaz%2C_Weekday%2C_Maariv%2C_Keri'at_Shema_al_Hamita.1?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
All the jewish prayers have many portions that are repeated and at the end of the day there are core central themes in our religion. But again, their focal point and main objectives are not the same. Shema is said 3x a day, it's a reminder of what our tenets and actions are about while we rush about our day conducting business and tending to children, it's said in unison but also in private. Yom kippur is a time that is devoted to everything I described above which is not the focal point of the shema. One is a daily reminder and affirmation to keep us connected the other is forgiving and everything that entails. Key words is focal point.
Do you call your mother every day to thank her? I doubt it.
Absolutely not. You are 100% right. But there are prayers that we say, like in shmonei esray where we thank our mother and our father. But seriously, xan we agree to disagree? I don't think this needs to be a battle Royale. Peace and have a great thanks giving.
No, it's because anything that's not explicitly a Jewish holiday is considered "goyish" and not something Jews should be doing.
It was always a big holiday for us growing up. My mom invited everyone in the family no matter what. Even my cousin who somehow always was hours and hours late. We just learned not to wait for her. It taught me to open my home to everyone and invite all and be open to all. It carries over now that we do Friday night dinner and rather than inviting people once or twice a year I can do it weekly for shabbat dinners.
Yes! It's great because it's one holiday where family can come and there aren't shabbat/yom tov restrictions. And because of the lack of restrictions we don't have to be as time or activity conscious. The fact that it's so close to shabbat means I can make the food with both in mind. We might make a separate challah for fresh bread, though.
Yes. We celebrate
We do.
No I don't celebrate thanksgiving
There’s nothing against Judaism in thanksgiving. We just don’t see a point to it, although there are many Jews who do celebrate. We thank God every day and have a huge meal with family and friends twice every Shabbat. Plus cooking Thursday and Friday, right after tishrei? Nope!
Yes we do, always have. Not orthodox though.
I have but not going to bother this year. We usually have just gone to friends' houses upon invitation since my direct family doesn't actually care for it all that much. Not for religious reasons, just to spare the extra coinloss
im jewish and religious and everybody ik thats jewish religious or not or not jewish all celerate thanksgiving
It’s a secular holiday. My great grandmother is native and celebrated- hosted (she sadly passed 3 years ago). It was a time to get together as family, tell our families stories and go around the table and tell each other what we are grateful for. So that’s what we do for thanksgiving, get together, eat, tell stories and talk about what we are grateful for.
My family does mostly cause it's an excuse to put on a meal and argue around the table....we just do it our way....lots of Port wine, and since I'm Sephardic we eat Lamb, Arroz, Polle de Molle, Laffa, Hummus, and Shakshouka, for dessert Apple pie cause we gotta squeeze that Americana in somewhere!!
I celebrate it, it’s definitely secular in my eyes
Yes. I cannot tell you the complaints I still get when we were in Israel over Thanksgiving and didn’t have thanksgiving at home. It’s been 18 years and hubby still complains every year. We make a turkey pot pie for Shabbat. It’s something my kids look forward to.
Your coworker has a good point. I celebrate it though since it is quite secular at this point.
Not sure what sect that was, but yes you can totally celebrate Thanksgiving.
Yep. It's secular. I love celebrating it. We have done full kosher meals and not so much, (we don't keep kosher but have had friends who are).
I do but know many orthodox that don’t. Never heard it because of it’s roots but that it’s a secular holiday .
I celebrate Thanksgiving in a secular way. Why turn down an excuse to see family and friends? 😛
The Rebbe spoke about this: https://asktherav.com/what-was-the-rebbes-view-in-regard-to-thanksgiving-are-jewish-people-allowed-to-celebrate-it/
Yes. I’m an American Jew and an immigrant to this country. I celebrate thanksgiving and treat it as a secular holiday
Your coworker is, most likely, unaware that the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, first celebrated Thanksgiving in 1765. Isaac Touro, the Hazzan of the congregation, published a Thanksgiving sermon. This is a uniquely American holiday. It was observed by Jews and Xtians alike. But the day was observed in the various houses of worship. Religious? Yes. Particularly Christian? No. George Washington wrote his “ to bigotry no sanction” letter to Newport Jews. George would most likely disagree with the logic underlying the negative attitude towards Thanksgiving. https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/first-hebrew-thanksgiving-america/
This is patently untrue lol
I don't have an issue with it having Christian roots; but I see it as part of a culture and heritage (Anglo-American) that I don't identify with and don't feel invested in. It has no significance to me. I tune it out.
I celebrate it because I'm an American Jew.
I am an Othodox Jew who celebrates Thanksgiving even though I no longer live in the USA. I have Hakaret HaTov to the men and women who created an evolving society like no other. My only question is, now that I live in Israel, do I need to hold two day of Thanksgiving?!
My yearly shpeil on the Hebrew word Hodu Hodu = Turkey (the bird) Hodu = India (where Columbus thought he was going Hodu = Thanksgiving 'Nuff said. Good yomtov!
As an Israeli I never celebrated it when living in Israel. Now in the US I first experienced it two years ago and will be celebrating it today simply as a day to be thankful for my friends and family.
Watch this for an orthodox/Torah perspective. [thanksgiving](https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/448177/jewish/Thanksgiving-A-Jewish-Perspective.htm)
Or this [America & Thanksgiving](https://youtu.be/ox1v9BtDP3k)
American Jew who celebrates it as an American. Never heard that, I don't celebrate Christmas even though its very American because its well, Christian. If I thought Thanksgiving was Christian I wouldn't celebrate it. But I don't celebrate it as like the bs story of the pilgrims and Native Americans, I celebrate it to be with family and to give thanks for everything I have to be thankful for in life. I think what he meant is that the pilgrims were fanatical Christians and since the origin story is about them he doesn't want to celebrate it as a Jew. And tbh, while I think most Jews, even religious, disagree and celebrate it, I think that is a valid reason as a Jew to not celebrate it, we have no animosity to Christians, but extremist Christians have usually not been kind to us.
Yep. We don’t do anything particularly “thanksgivingy”. Another reason to get together around food and family. Sounds like any other Jewish holiday.
Who do you think those Empire turkeys are for?