This is a cartoon, created by Rabbi Henry Rabin and advertising artist Leonard Prikitin under the name Henry Leonard, which appeared in The Chicago Sentinel on December 19, 1963. The cartoon depicts an older man Haredi looking man, dressed in a long coat, shirt, tie, vest, dark trousers, and a black hat. The man is standing in the entrance of the house with his hands on his hips and frowning. The door to the house has a Christmas wreath on it, and inside the house is a large Christmas tree decorated with candy canes and ornaments and topped with a large Star of David. Next to the tree is a woman and her son. She is smiling and speaking to the man. The caption reads: “Why Zede...we’d never think of a Christmas tree without a Star of David on top!”
The cartoon addresses the dilemma that some Jews in the Diaspora feel in December, during the period of Chanukah and Christmas, and the generation gap that sometimes exists between grandparents and parents in the way that they handle the dilemma. Here, the zede or grandfather represents the religious, European immigrant generation. Zede is portrayed as unhappy that his daughter has a Christmas tree in her house. The daughter, though, seems pleased with her “solution” to the problem of being Jewish during Christmas, namely, topping her tree with a Jewish star instead of the type of star that is usually used to top a Christmas tree.
For many, the adoption of Christmas traditions is seen as a sign of assimilation into Christian society and a loss of Jewish identity and tradition. For others, however, Christmas trees and the exchange of Christmas presents are not viewed as Christian symbols but rather as national traditions. In recent years, people in certain communities have attempted to create a hybrid version of the two holidays with a Chanukah bush, which is sometimes placed next to a chanukiya.
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Dayenu – “Dayenu” was a weekly cartoon that appeared in Jewish newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s. The cartoon was signed by Henry Leonard, a pseudonym used to represent two people: Rabbi Henry Rabin and the artist Leonard Prikitin. The cartoon, titled “Dayenu” (meaning enough) from the Haggadah was intended to be humorous, sometimes even poking fun at the US Jewish communities at the time. At its peak, “Dayenu” appeared in 50 Jewish newspapers and was later collected in four books.
The Chicago Sentinel - The Chicago Sentinel, a weekly newspaper for the Chicago Jewish community, was one of the longest continuously published Jewish weeklies in the United States. The first issue of the Sentinel was published on February 4, 1911. The newspaper focused on cultural events and included many eye-catching illustrations and photographs. It also published short stories and reports about events in the various Jewish communities. The Sentinel differed from many other English-language, often highbrow, Jewish weeklies, because it reached out to the Zionist immigrants who preferred to read in English and not Yiddish. The Sentinel is a treasure trove for social, cultural, and religious historians who are interested in American Jewish life outside of New York during the twentieth century.
