The Adorably Misguided Good Intentions of Hershel the Jewish Reindeer
As the Jewish parent of a holiday, present and toy-obsessed five year old boy II’ve wrestled with the dilemma of how to handle Christmas. I don’t want to deprive my son the joy and endless homey pleasure of Christmas and Christmas culture but we’ve also made it abundantly clear that while Christmas trees and Santa and carols and snowmen are fun we are Jewish and we do not celebrate Christmas.
Instead, we celebrate the bullshit, half-assed, wannabe holiday of Hannukah, the festival of lights and trying to convince our children they aren’t missing out just because they don’t get to participate in a cultural institution so massive and central to both our financial functioning and our national identity that our economy’s success any given year is dictated largely by the robustness of Christmas shopping, and shopkeepers not mentioning it in every possible context is seen by the MAGA crowd as an unforgivable assault on the make-pretend Christian origins of the United States.
Jeff Geller, the adorably well-meaning author of the embarrassingly, ingratiatingly “woke” children’s book Hershel the Jewish Reindeer also clearly wrestled with the timeless conundrum of how to present Christmas and its cozy customs to children who are not Christian. Unfortunately it led him to write a book reflecting his desire to create a Christmas narrative that did not favor Christianity over any other faith and integrated customs and mythological figures from around the world in an achingly sincere, painfully well-intentioned Yuletide yarn that’s the literary equivalent of one of those “Co-Exist” bumper stickers.
This excessively inclusive Christmas tale begins with Santa’s usual squad of mostly Christian reindeer feeling sad because they won’t be with their own family on Christmas. I don’t want to be overly harsh on this big-hearted, well-intentioned children’s book but I call bullshit. These reindeer work one night a year. In return they can fucking fly and people make children’s books and movies and songs about them. I don’t think that’s too heavy of a workload but apparently these lazy flying fucks think a one night a year workload can’t compete with working zero nights out of the year for the sake of cultural diversity.
We learn that Santa employs a Jewish reindeer named Hershel who asks aloud, “Would it matter to Santa which one of us flies? Chanukah is two weeks early this year! Maybe I can help my friends with their holiday cheer.”
So Hershel the Jewish Reindeer, who does not believe that Jesus was the son of God and was crucified to atone for humanity’s sins can’t do it alone so he decides to seek the services of mythological creatures representing a rich smorgasbord of the world’s religions and faiths. First up is Sanchali, the Hindu elf, a figure that has historically not been depicted in Christmas stories, let alone in such a positive way.
Sanchali, in turn, suggests they hook up with Aalam, a Muslim Gnome for help. Aalam suggests they add Buddhism and reincarnation into the mix when he proposes, “I know a reindeer who can float in the air, Dawa is a Buddhist, but Santa won’t care. In his life before this one, he was a bird, He’d be happy to help us, just say the word.”
But what of people of no faith? What about atheists, who worship only science, religion, Bill Maher and Ricky Gervais? Hershel the Jewish Reindeer has you covered on that front as well. Next up is a clearly stoned reindeer wearing a peace sign medallion around his neck who happily announces, “Hi, my name is Larry and I’m atheist. This just means that I don’t pray. But I can still help the others by pulling this sleigh!”
But Geller doesn’t stop there. Next up is Hubert, who happily pipes up. “I’m agnostic, which means I have doubt, But that doesn’t mean that I won’t help you out. I have many more friends who can help you to fly, they have different beliefs—Taoist, Shintoist, Baha’i”
Don’t be surprised if next year instead of Rudolph and Dasher getting all the fame and glory you end up hearing a lot about Hubert the Agnostic Reindeer and Larry the Reindeer that believes that religion is fundamentally a crutch for weak-minded people and a form of social conditioning.
The problem with Hershel the Jewish Reindeer, beyond it reading like a parody of crunchy Liberal good intentions gone horribly awry is that it tries to remove the Christian core of Christianity by opening up one of its most cherished traditions to myriad other religions and religious faiths as well as atheism and agnosticism but only ends up highlighting the supremacy of Christmas, the central place it plays in our culture, our economy and our imaginations.
In trying to assure us that Christmas isn’t everything, and lots of other faiths have great traditions Hershel the Jewish Reindeer just ends up foregrounding the importance of Christmas and Santa and his stupid fucking reindeer all over again.
Despite, or perhaps because its earnest good intentions, Hershel the Jewish Reindeer isn’t just ineffective, it’s counter-productive. It reduces the religions of the world to a bunch of pinch-hitters happy to set their lives aside so they can help some lazy-ass flying reindeer shirk their one responsibility.
This adorably misguided book is instructive in how non-Christian parents like myself can discuss Christmas and its irresistible, ubiquitous traditions and institutions, but more as a cautionary warning of what not to do than than as an example of how to make Christmas not just egregiously non-Christian but a self-congratulatory festival of diversity and inclusion that just ends up highlighting Christmas’ clear-cut cultural dominance over all other holidays, Christian and otherwise.
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