The Experience of Being Jewish During Disneyland's 'Holiday Season'

I spent my Thanksgiving holiday with my husband’s family in California, mostly at Disneyland. Everything there was Christmas-ed up the wazoo, in either red and green or the black and white of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. Rides were tricked out with images of teetering piles of wrapped presents topped with shiny bows. (Fun fact: Over 1.4 miles of ribbon are used for bows in the park, as well as over 79,000 ornaments.) “Holiday songs,” i.e., Christmas and/or nebulous “it’s snowing” songs written by Jews, played on an endless loop. But now and then, my children cocked their heads, stood straight up and yelled “Hanukkah song!”: Sprinkled in with the Irving Berlin and Sammy Cahn hits are “Sevivon, Sov Sov Sov” and “Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah.”

It was a strange place to be Jewish.

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