The irony always struck me. One of two Jewish holidays that my entire extended family observes is Chanukah, the other being an abbreviated Passover Seder with nonkosher food, a quick rendition of Dayeinu, and bagels for breakfast the next day. They don’t get it. Here we are, lighting candles and commemorating the Maccabees’ resistance to assimilation, and all of them—except me—are as assimilated a group of Jews as you’ll find. They stand in front of the burning candles, sing a Hanukkah song in English, and then rush to open presents and eat latkes. Never once does it cross any of my family members’ minds that the nightmare we evaded thousands of years ago is now so pervasive. I have become the black sheep of the family because I chose a different path. They are normal, and I am the weird one. For some odd reason, it mattered a lot to my parents that their children marry Jews. Unfortunately, because we were raised with no meaningful connection to Yiddishkeit, none of my brothers married Jews, and I am the only girl, which leaves my grandparents with a dozen grandkids whose mothers are not Jewish. My children are the only Jewish children left to carry on the tradition. When we see or hear the overused statement “Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust,” that number does no justice to its true impact.
Many of those Jews who went to the gas chambers would have grown up to marry other Jews and raise Torah-observant children. The loss of six million means tens of thousands of shomer Shabbos Jews are no longer lighting Chanukah candles to celebrate the victory over assimilation. I experience the holocaust of our generation every year when I assemble with my family in front of the Chanukah candles and try not to cry. Many years ago I stopped spending any part of Pesach with my family. It’s impossible. They have all abandoned the Passover Seder of my youth because, frankly, none of the grandkids care enough to sit through even the most abbreviated version of it. My family has only one tradition left—lighting Chanukah candles and opening presents. And I ask myself, should I be happy that they still have something left? Or do I see it for what it is for them? The fact is that they just don’t want to miss out on Xmas. My husband, children and I leave the family gathering, our presents neatly packed away, my children blissfully unaware that they are the only remaining link in the chain that gives my parents any hope of being a true bubbe and zeide.