Chinese Food on Christmas, an Age-Old Tradition

Do you know what you get if you subtract the Chinese year, 4708, from the Jewish year, 5771?

No, not 1063. You get the number of years Jews had to go without Chinese food.

This year will be the first Christmas in many, many years that I will not be having a traditional Jewish Christmas dinner: Chinese food. I even tried to have Chinese food for lunch today, but the place I'd chosen had gone out of business.

So, where'd all this Chinese food on Christmas come from? In reading Galit Breen's Minnesota Mamaleh: So What DO Jews Do On Christmas?, I found a link to Hanna Raskin's So, Why Do Jews Eat Chinese Food at Christmas? Hanna Raskin wrote her Master's thesis on the relationship between Jews and Chinese food. I was surprised to learn that Jews' eating Chinese food (not only on Christmas, but in general), was not an experience of our affinity for Asian cuisine, but rather because of our proximity to the Chinese community. Not in Biblical times, but in New York. Thinking about it, I realized Raskin was totally right. The Lower East Side, the quintessential Jewish neighborhood of the last two centuries in New York, the place where so many of us can trace our Jewish roots, borders Chinatown. While I don't agree with Raskin's point that Chinese food is kosher-ish, because the meat is so finely chopped that it's hardly recognizable at treif, I do agree with the rest of her points.

She points out that chop suey was a sophisticated dish in its heyday. Eating it meant you were part of American culture. Also, in Chinese restaurants, Jews look like white people; so, while there was persecution of Jewish communities elsewhere, in a Chinese restaurant, Jews got to be just like everyone else. As New York Jewish culture spread throughout the rest of the country, so did the custom of eating Chinese food, especially on Christmas, even for those Jews who didn't have ancestors who'd lived on the Lower East Side.

So, whether or not you choose to celebrate Jewish Christmas with a traditional meal of Chinese food, have a Shabbat Shalom/Merry Christmas and remember, pork isn't kosher, unless it's in Chinese food.