Why Jews Don't Ruin Santa - CHRONICLE Online/The WORD 12/18/25

Weekly On-line Rabbi's D'var-Torah

December 18, 2025

28 Kislev 5786

Rosh Chodesh

Hanukkah

Parashat Miketz

There is an unwritten—but very important—rule passed down from generation to generation in the Jewish community this time of year: Jewish children are never, under any circumstances, allowed to tell their Christian friends that Santa Claus isn’t real. Once their friends discover the truth on their own, that’s a different matter. But the revelation should never come from a Jewish friend.

I may be exaggerating slightly, but there’s a real truth behind this “rule.” It’s a wonderful story, and we want it to remain true for those who believe it. Who wouldn’t want to believe in a jolly man who sneaks into your home in the middle of the night and leaves behind exactly what you wished for? If we can help preserve that magic for our young Christian friends, then we should do everything we can to keep our kids from ruining it.

After all, we have stories of our own that we wish were true.

Setting aside the ancient story of the miraculous jug of oil, there is a much more recent Hanukkah legend that I really hope is true—even though it can’t be proven.

According to the story, George Washington learned about Hanukkah from a Jewish soldier he encountered at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777. Washington supposedly noticed the soldier lighting Hanukkah candles on the first night of the holiday—which, in a remarkable coincidence, fell on Christmas Eve that year. The story is preserved in the beloved children’s book Hanukkah at Valley Forge, a book I love and have read many times to my children’s public school classes and to our JLC classes right here at Ohr Shalom.

Historians have tried to identify which of Washington’s soldiers were Jewish, searching for the man who might have been lighting a menorah that night. Which ordinary private would have had the courage to lift his general’s spirits by explaining that the Continental Army’s struggle against a distant British king mirrored the Maccabees’ fight against a distant foreign ruler?

It’s such a good story—and I want it to be true. I want it to be true because I love the idea that America’s founding father understood that the Jewish quest for freedom and the American quest for freedom are, at their core, the same story.

But in the end, it doesn’t actually matter whether the legend is true. Because George Washington told us, in his own unmistakable words, that he understood the Jewish people and valued their place in American life.

Shortly after becoming president, Washington received a letter from the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, congratulating him. He wrote back with a blessing that still resonates today:

“May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.”

Now, that’s a really good story, AND it’s true!  Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Hanukkah.

Shalom, 

RAF.