Here are my thoughts on /y/a/o/i/ "yuletide," fandom, and anti-Semitism

[thuviaptarth]

Some of you have seen some of this argument already, and some of you haven't, and my feelings about arguments made on both sides are mixed, so I'm going to start with a recap and continue with tons of exposition. Those of you who haven't skipped out already, please bear with me.

mamadeb posted a complaint about Yuletide signups going live on Sukkot, a Jewish holiday. I read her tone as intended to be humorous, in a passive-aggressive way, but other people--including several on her friends list--read it as accusatory. She's said in comments that she didn't intend to accuse the Yuletide mods of deliberate malice, just carelessness. In the comments, but not in the original post, she also expresses a wish that the ficathon had a "more neutral name." In addition to the arguments in her comments, her post got picked up by Fandom Wank.

I am disturbed by some of the objections to mamadeb, and particularly by the nature of some of the responses on Fandom Wank. I'd like to make it clear that I'm not bothered by people who disagree with mamadeb's initial complaint. I do not, in fact, agree with her complaint about the timing of the signups. The signups were pre-announced and there's a two-week signup period with no penalty for signing up late in the period or reward for signing up early. The signup period is two weeks long precisely to allow people who have conflicts during that a period a long enough opening that they can find time to sign up.

I also do not criticize people who read Mama Deb's tone as accusatory; as I said, I read it as intended to be humorous, but also, as I implied by "passive-aggressive," as not quite coming off that way. Several of her initial commenters suggested steps she could take to make sure Yuletide nominations didn't conflict with Jewish holidays in the future, and her dismissal of all of these did indeed rub me wrong.

Finally, I do not agree with her dismissive attitude towards paganism and Christian holidays in the comments. She's not the spokesperson I'd have picked, and I am probably not the one she would have picked, but nevertheless I am speaking out about the few items on which I do agree with her.

I am disturbed by the number of people who disclaim a connection between the term "Yuletide" and Christianity, or for that matter between "Christmas" and Christianity; by the initial Fandom Wank post's cavalier attitude towards the possibility of a Jewish complaint; and by the outright anti-Semitism from some of the Fandom Wank commenters. (Yes, I know, they're Fandom Wank. They're still part of fandom.)

To elaborate:

1. Yuletide and Christianity
   I am aware that "Yule" was originally a pagan term and it has been reclaimed by many neo-pagans for the winter solstice holiday. However, for several centuries now, it has been associated with the Christmas holiday, and the name of the Yuletide challenge is taken from a Christmas carol. I realize that for many people in the West, especially but not exclusively Christians, Christmas has become a secular holiday because it is associated with their national culture (hi, guys, I've been in the UK in December, you cannot convince me I am being American-centric here) and because it is recognized as a holiday by their secular governments. I know Jews and members of other religious minorities in the West who are not bothered by the terms "Yuletide" or "Secret Santa" and who have Christmas trees (and who set up huge fandom-crossing obscure fandom ficathons!) and who distinguish the cultural practice of Christianity from the religious practice of Christianity. I am not one of them, partly because so few Christians seem to have an understanding of Christianity as a cultural practice, or the ways in which they receive the privilege of a cultural default, even when they themselves are not religious or choose atheism or a different religion. Why should they have this understanding? Privilege is the headache they don't know they don't have.
   
   I am going to be very explicit about this: I'm not just talking about this ficathon. I'm not asking for the name "Yuletide" to be changed. I think that would be a huge headache, to begin with, and at this point I even have positive associations with the name, because of my happy involvement with the challenge. But I am saying that "Yuletide"--whether in reference to this challenge or in general--is not nondenominational. It is not religiously neutral. It is not broadly inclusive.
   
   And really, the important part of that last paragraph for me is the "in general." This is not about an attitude specific to fandom. This is about an attitude in the cultures from which Western media fans come.
   
   And the amount of resistance to this concept--that Christianity is not everyone's default and it is not a neutral position--is what disturbs me in many responses.
   
   
2. I get the sense in this thread that some people think it's not really anti-Semitism if it just affects some Jews, not all of them. To be quite honest, this seems to me about the same reasoning as saying that forbidding French schoolgirls to wear veils isn't anti-Muslim because it only affects the really devout ones, or that forbidding black women in public offices in Florida to wear braids or dreads isn't racist because some black women like straightening their hair.
   
   No, not all Jews turn off their computers on the Sabbath or on Sukkot. I don't. But that doesn't mean I am unaffected by the mockery of traditional Jewish customs.
   
   
3. Several of the comments on Fandom Wank, including the original post, were not so much anti-Semitic as Christian-centric. This is still, frankly, a problem. An inclusive society depends on recognizing that others are not like us and that their communities, folkways, traditions, and identities are valuable to them and innately worth preserving. The failure to realize this, or to recognize specific instances of exclusion, is privilege in action; it is generally motivated by ignorance rather than malice, but the ignorance is still hurting other people.
   
   Comments I would place in this category include:
   
   
   
   
   • If mamadeb is so upset and bothered by Yuletide signups beginning on Sukkot (and Yuletide's name), why is she even bothering with Yuletide?
     
     If it bothers her that much, then why be a part of it?
     
     As at least two subsequent commenters did point out, it's not unreasonable to criticize an institution which excludes you.
     
     
   • Uhm, just curious, does anyone know why mamadeb has an issue with the term "Yuletide"? (No sarcasm, I really do want to know.) and several of the responses, expressing disbelief, contempt, indifference to the exclusion of Judaism and other religions, and--this may be my favorite--the idea that since the Christmas carol the challenge name came from was originally a pagan Welsh hymn, it's not really Christian, even though Wales was converted to Christianity in about the fifth century of the Common Era (a fact I found by about five minutes' Googling, and if you don't know what the Common Era is, you too can Google to find out) and the hymn has been used as a Christmas carol throughout the English-speaking world for at least two hundred years now.
     
   
   
   
4. ETA 9:17pm: I'm leaving this up because people responded to it, and it affected my mood, but mayatawi offered an explanation for the exchange here, so I retract the accusation of anti-Semitism. I still think the conversation was ill-advised, but I don't think there was any malice involved.END ETA
   
   Comments which passed right over Christian-centric to anti-Semitic came up in this thread:
   
   

   
   panthea: Uh, at a guess... because most non-Jews have never even heard of Sukkot, let alone know when it is?
   
   Mamadeb waved the same persecution flag when sign-ups for the Muskrat Jamboree (tiny tiny slash con in Boston this year) opened on... some other Jewish holiday. I wanna say Rosh Hashanah, but that's just because it's fun to say.
   
   mindset: My non-Jewish boyfriend's favorite Jewish holiday is Sukkot, just because he enjoys pronouncing it "suck it". He is a great big silly. :)

   
   
   Do I have to explain what's wrong with this? Do I really have to explain what's so insulting about someone not just saying that Jewish holidays aren't well-known in the West, but implying that they're not worth knowing? Do I have to explain why it's exoticizing and insulting and just generally not okay to make fun of the name of Jewish holidays, or to take a holiday name and turn it into a sexual slur/insult? Do I really, really, really have to explain why someone saying "Suck it" instead of "Sukkot" isn't being a great big silly, he's being an asshole, and so is the person quoting this with approval?
   
   Do I really?
   
   ETA 9:17pm: mayatawi offers an explanation for the exchange here, so I retract the accusation of anti-Semitism. I still think the conversation was ill-advised, but I don't think there was any malice involved.
   

Comments

from m_f

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Alright, I was going to stay out of this from now on, but since you picked on me specifically :P :

I agree that a lot of the comments on the f_w post were clumsy and reeked of privilege, including a lot of mine; I decided to shut up about it and let wiser people talk when I realized that, and I am trying to get better. A lot of that was, I would swear, not an attempt to move away from the issue because of uncomfortableness with privilege, but because many Christians find the changing meanings and agglutinated customs of Christmas fascinating, and because f_w has a tradition of wandering off-topic (accompanied by the very complicated relationship many Christians have with talking in public about their religion.) That said, if it had been any group but Judaism that was at issue, the talk about privilege and the shutting up about Christian experience would have come a *lot* sooner, even on f_w, and *that's* a problem, and one that I at least plan to work on.

That said, in the specific post of mine you picked on, you've misinterpreted what I was saying in several places (granted, I oversimplified, because this *was* f_w, not the place for tl;dr and citations.) First, I was specifically responding to the OP's statement that her problem with the name Yuletide was its pagan associations, not its Christian ones. Blame the focus on the pagan associations on her, not on us: if she'd said it was because of the Christian associations (or even if I'd come in later, after the discussion had drifted to more general principles) I would have made a completely different response.

Secondly, I didn't say it was a pagan hymn, I said it was a New Year's hymn, which was what all my sources stated and I haven't found any contradictory ones. New Year's Day, while of course it has associations in a society that's culturally saturated with Christianity, has never been a specifically religious holiday, either in Wales or the US, and the original Welsh song has no religious references at all, so far as Google could tell me. Thirdly, I said it wasn't sung in the English words till about 150 years ago - (the earliest date I'm getting is 1885, so I actually gave it a good 30 years over the conservative estimate, but 200 years doesn't sound far off) - not to quibble, but I don't really think we disagree on the facts there. Feel free to disagree with me on the way I used those facts, because I was admittedly being kind of shifty there in a failed attempt at snark, but don't accuse me of being unable to google when we both googled up the same facts!

(Also, that reinvention which included carols like Deck the Halls was a part of the whole Victorian-era neopagan revival, which consciously and deliberately played up the pagan aspects of Christmas and other British traditions, which may be irrelevant to people who aren't Christian or Pagan but is vitally important to people who *are*, so it hits a very tender spot when people casually ignore it - but this discussion isn't about us, so I'm really tring to shut up now.)

Re: from m_f

[melannen.livejournal.com]

...and I realize, coming back to this a bit calmer and less exhausted, that I put in the 'I did bad' but left out the 'I'm sorry', and that besides, a bunch of nitpicking is probably the last thing you needed right now. Trying one last time to get it right, and then I really will shut up and go away:

A lot of what I said in that post was irrelevant to the issue, and deeply insensitive to people who were hurt by things that were being said, and I'm sorry. I realized a few minutes afterward that I shouldn't have posted at all; I'm working on learning to realize it a few minutes before I dive in, rather than after, which probably applied to this post as well. I wasn't thinking beyond myself, and I've continuously let my obsession with getting facts straight, and my personal hobbyhorses, override my consideration for others and the very real injury that was at issue. I am sincerely sorry for adding to people's pain over this, and I very sincerely wish that I were either a good enough person to help more than hurt, or at least a wise enough one to listen silently. While I work on that, I offer apology as the best I can do.

[zyna-kat.livejournal.com]

Uhm, just curious, does anyone know why mamadeb has an issue with the term "Yuletide"? (No sarcasm, I really do want to know.)

I just wanted to apologize for asking the question. I didn't mean to offend, but if I did offend something, my intention is no excuse. I understand the various meanings of Yule and Yuletide, and was (and still am) really curious which ones MamaDeb has an issue with. Is it the strong tie to Christmas? The pagan roots? The idea that it's pretending to be secular? All of the above? I didn't mean it to be dismissive, and I'm sorry that so many responses went the way they did.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for Deb, but the issue as I see it is all of the above, to an extent. As this debate wears on, the strongest objection is the denial of Yuletide's connection to Christian roots, coupled with the astounding amount of blatant anti-semitism.

I for one, don't mistake your ignorance (and I don't mean that in a mocking way, but in the literal sense of NOT knowing) for anti-semitism. I do, however, think that if you were truly interested in learning, you could have picked a much more appropriate venue than F-W in your search for answers.

That said, it took guts to come here and reply as you did. One apology goes a long way when things get as ugly as they have. I appreciate it.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Thank you for making the apology. I don't have a problem with asking questions--it's how people learn--and was a lot more distressed by the shift from ignorance (which I am using in the same way Kita does above) to mockery by other posters. That said, I found your comment here a little frustrating because I have just made a five-point post which describes in great detail why *I* dislike the term; googling could tell you why many Jews dislike the term; and the only person who can tell you which particular reasons apply to Mama Deb is Mama Deb. I don't speak for her any more than I speak for Kita or shalott. So the way the discussion keeps coming back to people requesting that Jews who object to the term restate and clarify their explanations, after several people have already made them, feels less like ignorance than resistance.

I'd like to add in something which I think may be relevant, or at least helpful as a pointer to different ways different people are thinking about the question, which is that I am also an atheist and that I see no conflict between these two identities, even though Judaism is commonly spoken of as a "religion." In the West, "religion" is defined with Christianity as the norm, and I don't think that people who come from Christian backgrounds--even if they do not characterize themselves as Christians and have been subject to discrimination on this basis--are always aware of how the default assumption of Christianity affects their reasoning.

[(Anonymous)]

Comments which passed right over Christian-centric to anti-Semitic came up in this thread:

panthea: Uh, at a guess... because most non-Jews have never even heard of Sukkot, let alone know when it is?

Panthea is not a Christian, as I recall, so I doubt very much she was being Christian-centric.

-- Mousie on FW

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Since panthea says she puts up Christmas trees despite not being Christian, I am assuming she was brought up in a predominantly Christian society, and having grown up in one, she is certainly capable of being Christian-centric without thinking about it, particularly when it involves assumptions that do not clash with her particular traditions and beliefs.

[slashpine.livejournal.com]

Here from metafandom etc.... and WHAT a great summary and analysis: THANK you so much.

I have been teaching variations on Peggy McIntosh's "Unpacking the Knapsack of White Privilege" for umpty years now and... UGH, rolling that rock UPHILL gets so freakin old. One always dreams there is a better way to say it, to get people there a little faster and less wankily. Your post is a really good way. I'm bookmarking it to be able to remind myself DTR of some of its awesome approach and specific comments, like:

+ Privilege is the headache they don't know they don't have. OOOH this is good. The second-shoe-dropping slowness of it forces one to think instead of just readFLAMEreact. And a headache is something we have probably all had, and probably also at some point not noticed (or cared) when it was someone else's. So, brilliant bloody analogy in an awesomely appropriate grammar.

+ Your exchange with Mayatawi in the threads is a model of careful and considerate sorting-out and as you say, calming it down. I wince when fandom has these wanks of bigotry and rudeness, but I adore being able to see fen demonstrate this awesomeness. *nominates you two for international diplomacy missions*

+ Someone's suggestion that hey, maybe we can haz gift exchanges that aren't themed around Xn Xmas? Eh, a cool idea for sure. Maybe instead of just admitting that a lot of our culture-bound ideas are *not* culture/ race/ religion/ class/ gender/ sexuality etc. neutral, fandom could try to develop some that are.

I am not jumping in on the discussion about Yuletide being an intentionally antiquarian Victorian thing so therefore it's not religious. If I did I would point to Eric Hobsbawm and other historians to point out that No, that whole 19th C fad of Ancient Aires is not a religious thing - it's a class thing! Which can be the same only worse (and include the religious thing as well).

Because I've been way tied up with some of the OTW thinky discussions which are verging on wank, so I'm too exhausted to jump into any more. All I have to conclude on this one is:
(a) some bloody good posts on it, and hopefully this will drive some education and etiquette home faster than the recent race wank went.
(b) Down With Bigots GRRR.
(c) OH I am so sorry anyone had to read such ignorant insults.
(d) And *sigh* we will get there, won't we?
*goes back to helping roll rock uphill*

[gloss]

if you don't know what the Common Era is, you too can Google to find out
This is -- as you've already been told -- a fantastic post, so I'm just going to toss a lot of sparkly hearts your way for this passage.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Thank you for everything you've posted, and I am truly sorry about the shit you've had to deal with. I've been staying out of most of it and it's difficult enough.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post, not least for making it public.

[cofax7]

You know, I don't have anything really substantive to add, other than I raise my tiny somewhat lapsed-Catholic fist in support. This is an excellent post, and you are to be commended for it.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I don't quite get why Yule as pagan holiday is a lot better than Christmas for inclusiveness--sure, it's a minority religion, but it's still a specific religion.

Anyway. I agree with you.

[cofax7]

It's also been so substantially coopted into Christmas that the average Joe-on-the-street, if you say, "yule" or "yuletide" to him, is going to think you're talking about Christmas. Even if the origin was pagan, and even if pagans currently celebrate Yule, most Americans (and, I assume, Brits, but I may be wrong) associate it with Christmas, period.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I still really like the respectful incorporation of religious elements into secular discourse and practices (because I like religion in general). It's, IMHO, only when Christianity shows up with all of its cultural power and beats up all the other kids on the playground that there is a problem.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

This is the one post by anybody anywhere that I would pick as summing up this entire debacle.

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

I'm just catching up to this today- thanks for the post, holy shit, etc.

But there's one comment I want to leave, that I've left elsewhere, which is that I think it's a little odd that all these pagan/Christian distinctions seem to assume that default paganism is A-OK with Jews, but not Christianity. Whereas Christianity is, of course, in and of itself a version of Judaism and a lot less idolatrous. Of course, it's Christianity that has the cultural hegemony and therefore makes sense with a lot of the arguments being made, but it really seems odd to me that anyone would suggest that a pagan holiday was "inclusive" of Jews (or Muslims).

I also thought one commenter in one thread cut right to the chase when she pointed out that "the holidays" or "the holiday season" were fall & spring in Judaism, not the winter solstice.

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

PS I want to clarify that I'm not "accusing" anyone of idolatry in any negative sense, at all- I'm an atheist, what do I care. I'm just also a cultural Jew who knows how much Judaism frowns on the pagan.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Mama Deb, ironically, did comment on this, and so has rydra_wong, but it's true it hasn't come up much elsewhere. I think it's more evidence of the way everything tends to circle back to Christianity as a reference point, and also of general ignorance of Judaism.

Thank you.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post. You don't know me, but I wandered in via metafandom, and I just want to express my sincere gratitude to you and all the other people that have been posting about this.

I'm Jewish. I've been reading and reading all of the posts for the last four days, and I'll admit something: I've had moments of being afraid to talk about this openly on my own journal, because I'm afraid of getting wanked. I feel intimidated, because I know I can't emotionally handle writing about this and then having accusations of oversensitivity and all the other horrendously insensitive bullshit that has been flung around by people over on JournalFen and LJ the last few days.

That should tell you something right there. The level of discomfort I'm feeling is acute, and I've never, ever felt self-conscious about my own identity before vis a vis being Jewish and participating in certain corners of fandom.

Now? I do. It's been an emotional rollercoaster.

On the positive side, seeing everyone journal so articulately about this has been really, really validating.

Thank you so much. Do you mind if I friend you?

Re: Thank you.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all, but I should warn you I don't usually post about religion!

[hossgal.livejournal.com]

vaznetti pointed to this saying 'an entirely sensible post'.

I agree with her, and with much of what you have (very calmly and politely) said here. Thank you for putting this out in the wider internets.

- hossgal

[greensilver.livejournal.com]

I am not one of them, partly because so few Christians seem to have an understanding of Christianity as a cultural practice, or the ways in which they receive the privilege of a cultural default

My family's holiday tradition always went like this: we'd open gifts from Santa, go to the home of atheist friends to exchange gifts under their fancy fake tree, and then go to the home of Jewish friends for a gathering and gift exchange, again, under their big, fancy tree, situated right next to their menorah (which always seemed vaguely like a fire hazard, but hey). Santa and trees and gift exchange never had a religious connotation for me; they were cultural. In fact, in the days when I still attended Catholic mass, Santa was depicted as anti-religious (it was often pointed out to me that "Santa" and "Satan" were anagrams), in direct conflict with the Christian message of Christmas (never mind that "Santa" is a toned down version of St. Nicholas, who was one of the more anti-pagan saints on the roster).

So while I agree that Christmas - the actual religious holiday of Christmas, the one with the word "Christ" in it - can't be completely separated from Christianity, I think that The Generic Holidays around that time of year, and heavily secularized elements of those holidays such as trees, lights, and yes, even Santa, can be separated from Christmas. It's one thing to be a member of another religion whose holidays are ignored in favor of Christian ones, but it's another thing to not be a member of any religion, and to not have any traditional religious holidays. The way that this discussion is taking place largely as Christians and Other Religions is overlooking the fact that not everyone has a religion, and those of us who don't still like to get together with family and friends around "the holidays" and swap gifts and drink eggnog. I could create an arbitrary day of gift-swapping in August, but late December is the time of year when religious friends celebrate their holidays and non-religious friends go "yeah, okay," and again, elements of the holidays have been so heavily secularized that I can appropriate them into my own tradition without religious connotation, so there isn't really a reason to be arbitrary. (Heck, early Christians appropriated the 25th because it was easier that way; why shouldn't I?)

I left off this part of the quote so I could address it separately:

even when they themselves are not religious or choose atheism or a different religion.

I'm really not sure where you're coming from, here. I don't mean to sound confrontational when I say that; I'm just not sure what the logic is. If someone raised in a Christian tradition becomes an atheist, how are they still a Christian?

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Well, that's what I mean by Christians not having a cultural concept of Christianity or realizing the extent to which Christianity is the cultural default. I'm a Jew. I'm also an atheist. The atheism doesn't erase the cultural and personal importance of Judaism to me. It doesn't make me not a Jew, and it doesn't eliminate the ways in which Judaism has shaped my life, ethics, and personality.

I'm not shaping this as Christians vs. other religions so much as Christians vs. Judaism, because it's a specific cultural history. There is a long history of Christian oppression of Jews, and while some of that history consists of rapine, massacre, pogroms, and legal discrimination, a lot of it consists of erasure --the erasure of the Jewish experience by the denial of its importance to history and the erasure of Jews via forced conversion as well as genocide. The insistence that because the "secular" signs of Christianity don't carry a Christian weight for non-Jews doesn't erase the Christian weight they carry for some Jews. (As always, two Jews, three opinions.) I've celebratd Christmas with friends and gone to Christmas parties and helped decorate Christmas trees, and that doesn't make me feel complicit in Christian domination. The idea that symbols and events historically associated with Christianity *aren't Christian anymore* and that I have to accept them as religiously and culturally neutral *does* erase me.

[brucha.livejournal.com]

While I appreciate that you've retracted the accusation of anti-Semitism regarding my sharing of my boyfriend's quirk, I'd also appreciate if you'd retract the "asshole" comments as well. If you don't see malice there, I'd like to hope I don't see malice in your misunderstanding of the context either.

But let me elucidate the context a bit. The story goes like this: some years ago, when we were starting our relationship, I let him know I'd be offline for the High Holidays. Later we had a phone call about the subject, and the holidays coming up. He'd looked up the dates, but with no context and having never heard of the holiday before, his pronunciation was lacking.

Him: So this next holiday you can't be online is... sukkit?
Me: *choke* No, hon, that's "su-kOt". Or "succos", as I usually say it.
Him: "Suck it"'s funnier... you could be like [wrestler whose catchphrase is this] "Let's get ready to Sukkkkkkkooooooot!"
Me: *helpless giggles*

and it became a running joke between us. Now, since FW is a place for humor and not serious discussion, I felt sharing that joke with panthea, a friend, was appropriate. I'd say it again in the same context with no shame.

(It could be worse; it's hard to talk about the sukkah in front of Russian Jews without cracking them up/making them blush until they get used to the word which coincidentally is pronounced the same as a certain Russian curse word.)

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

One of the recurring surprises for me in this conversation has been how many Fandom Wank members have not, in fact, realized they were having private conversations with friends while in the community, but posting publically in the Internet in front of people unaware of their personal context, just like the people they choose to mock.

I would suggest that you keep this private joke, like private pet names, private, if you do not wish it to be subject to misinterpretation. Amazingly enough, I still don't find your joke funny.