Скачать или смотреть Christmas-style items for Hannukah

(12 Dec 2014) LEADIN:
A growing number of US companies are producing Christmas-style items for the Jewish festival Hanukkah.
But not everyone's happy about the apparent alignment of the winter holidays.
STORYLINE:
Oy Vey, Holidays! Does Hanukkah want to be Christmas?
Aimed at interfaith couples, Mike Patchen of New York with his brother created this - the Menorah Tree.
"Menorah Tree is basically an alternative to a typical Hanukkah Bush," says Patchen.
"So for Jewish interfaith families who want something big, festive and fun for the holidays but are looking for something with a more traditional Jewish design, my brother and I invented the Menorah Tree. And basically from my own family, my wife was brought up and had a Christmas tree, we are raising our family with a conservative Jewish home and we wanted something fun but something that was more iconic Jewish design to it."
It costs $285 US dollars, is 6-feet tall and shaped like a candelabra, with pine garlands wrapped around each of the menorah's nine candle-holders.
Patchen admits it's not for everyone.
"There's the old adage, you get 50 Jewish people in a room you get 60 opinions," he says.
"And so clearly this is right for some people, it's not right for other people, we understand that. The reality is that according to the latest Pew report from last year, 30 percent of Jewish families, 70 percent interfaith families already have a Hanukkah Bush and so for us this was a nice vibrant alternative to that."
The tree is just one of a few Hanukkah-themed products inspired by Christmas traditions.
There are also toys appearing amid a sea of holiday merchandise adorned with Christmas trees and Santa Claus.
Christmas has 'Elf on the Shelf' a popular children's book, Hanukkah now has 'The Maccabee on the Mantel'.
It was created by Dallas-based author Abra Liberman Garrett.
The Maccabee doll comes with a book that tells the Hanukkah story, in which a band of Jewish soldiers called Maccabees defeated the Syrians, who had tried to force their Jewish subjects to give up their religion.
"It was the culmination of many things; me always having wanted a Christmas tree, going to a holiday pageant that Hanukkah was not represented at all. Those kind of things all factored in," says the author.
"But I think 'Elf on the Shelf' is adorable, and precious and wonderful, there was no way to make it work for my family, Santa doesn't come to us. So I had to look at my son - who is five - and my daughter - who is three - and say; 'No matter how good you are, no matter how well you behave, you don't have Santa coming."
Instead of being a story based on fantasy, the author says her book deals with the Jewish holiday in an educational way.
"It is actually the story of Hanukkah," she says.
"It educates about what happened, about King Antiochus telling the Jews they were not allowed to worship as they chose. How they fought for their rights to worship as they chose and then it segways into modern times and we threw a little Yiddish in and just peppered it with some of the fun Hanukkah customs, the latkes, dradle."
Christmas has gingerbread houses, now Manischewitz - best-known for selling Passover matzo - sells Chanukah House kits.
They use cookie dough with blue-and-white icing, there's also a candy Star of David, Menorah and Mezuzah.
"It's taking something and having a Jewish twist to it and having giving a more fun activity to do on Hanukkah besides playing dradle," says Manischewitz assistant brand manager, Sara Stromer.
The company launched their Chanukah House kits back in 2012.

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