My last post was about an interaction I had with a parent regarding the use of sacred, Christian music on a "Winter Holiday" program. You can read all about it here. I alluded to the "Hanukkah Situation" in that post (not to be confused with the Bonnie Situation), and wanted to open up a discussion about it. For the record, I am Jewish, and if that gives me even a tiny measure of extra credibility, well, I'm just gonna go ahead and take it.
Here's the thing: Hanukkah is a minor Jewish holiday. In the scheme of things, Rosh Hasanna, Yom Kippor and Passover are much more important. Hanukkah has become conflated with Christmas for a number of reasons. In particular, they fall around the same time of year, gift giving is a part of both traditions, and Jews have adopted Hanukkah as a somewhat public display of their faith (think menorahs in the window). But Hanukkah is not a biblical holiday, as the previous holidays I mentioned are, and there are no restrictions on work, going to school or other such things. It is a relatively minor holiday that has become most people’s primary point of reference for Judaism.
When we employ tokenism, and include one or two Hanukkah tunes on every “Winter Holiday” program, we are emphasizing the wrong aspects of Judaism (plus many of those pieces one might include are garbage from a musical standpoint, especially the huge numbers of pieces that have been written specifically to give Winter Holiday programs a new Hanukah piece each year…you know, that brand new Hanukkah piece in your new music reading packet? Sorry, but they are often not that good). So, not only are we denying the importance of Christian music at the holiday program, we also do a disservice to Judaism by educating students and the audience on the less important parts of the faith and it’s musical tradition. For many people, the only Jewish song they know is “Dreydl, Dreydl,” which means that music educators have failed to teach about Judaism and Jewish music.
What we are doing when we program a Hanukkah piece every year, and ignore the rest of the Jewish choral tradition, is simply paying lip service to the notion of multiculturalism and inclusion. By including one of these pieces, we can push back when someone objects to the "Winter Holiday" program by saying "see, we included a Hanukkah song!" But educating in a diverse and inclusive way is not accomplished just with one piece. It's really done over the course of the entire year. And ultimately, to do it well, it is a multi-year project that aims to represent as many branches of choral music as possible so that our students have an accurate understanding of what is out there.
The end result is that I tell my choral music education students that they have my permission to not do Hanukkah songs every year, as long as they do other music from the Jewish tradition at other times of the year, help to educate their students about the Jewish faith, and seek other opportunities throughout the year to find pieces that are outside of the Christian tradition.
Next time I will talk about some of the solutions to this issue, and how me might open this conversation up a little and address some of these reoccurring problems.
Ronald Richard Duquette says
Joshua Bronfman says
Julia Laylander says
I am now of the opinion that all choral and music students of all ages (and their audiences) should be exposed to as many different kinds and types of music from as many cultures and traditions as possible. Although I am old and cynical and have no illusions that such a strategy would contribute to “world peace,” it does have the capacity to educate minds and potentially incrementally reduce the ignorance and insularity that characterizes too much of our country. At the very least it holds the capacity to make “outsiders” feel less odd and isolated, and that can’t be a bad thing.
Joshua Bronfman says
Ronald Richard Duquette says