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WalterRego -> Coming Out (12/23/2008 10:28:00 AM)
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There have been a number of threads about what to reveal to our straight friends and family. This is part of an article by a gay Jew, Jay Michaelson, about Hanukkah. Hanukkah is not "really" about the story of oil lasting for 8 days, any more than Christmas is about Santa Claus or tinsel covered trees and gifts:
Hanukkah is a “coming out” holiday, in both its origins and its contemporary forms. The Hanukkah story is, in large part, a story of coming out — being open and honest about oneself and one’s values, and demanding that difference be accommodated. The circumstances that led to the Maccabean revolt were not so much single acts of oppression as they were a slow, insidious process of erasure. Some of that process was imposed by the Syrian-Greek occupiers of Palestine, but some, let’s remember, was embraced by Hellenizing Jews. As means of assimilation, Jews semi-voluntarily took on Greek names and Greek customs, and the regarding of Jewish worship as one among many options.
To take but one colorful example, circumcision was abandoned not by force of law, but because Hellenized Jewish society involved frequent nudity — in sports, at the baths, etc. — and circumcised penises were considered ugly and embarrassing. Indeed, the Greeks regarded the exposed glans much as we today regard genital exposure in general: as nakedness. Competing in the gymnasium with a circumcised penis would be like going to your local gym in the nude. Many Jews thus chose not to circumcise their sons so that they could assimilate better into the dominant culture.
The Maccabees, in a part of the Hanukkah story they don’t teach you in Sunday school, rebelled against this assimilation, even forcibly circumcising baby boys against the wishes of the children’s parents. Hardly a model of religious tolerance — but definitely a form of coming out. They didn’t demand equal treatment of Hellenizers and non-Hellenizers; they demanded that Jews be acknowledged as different.
Today, Hanukkah plays an oddly similar role. In America, we are inundated with images of Christmas: endless sleighs and trees and Santas and the rest. Everyone’s meant to get into the spirit of the “holidays.” Which is why, as Kyle Broslovsky of Comedy Central’s animated series “South Park” put it, it’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas. Especially with the far right now decrying a “war on Christmas” and boycotting stores that say ‘Happy Holidays,’ maybe it’s better to just lay low on the Hanukkah thing, put on the dumb red hat and wait until it’s over.
To celebrate Hanukkah today is thus a form of coming out: admitting difference, recognizing that one is not the same as everyone else and, hopefully, celebrating the unique gifts that being different offers.
Finally, I think it took me so long to come out because I lacked the kind of community and values that would have given me the courage I needed to do so. All my friends and family members were straight, and the gay world I saw on TV looked superficial, hypersexual and weird. It was only once I came out that I realized sexuality is about more than having sex, and that being queer, like being Jewish, is a blessing. In an ideal world, we all grow up with religious and personal role models. But because few GLBT people grow up in gay families, coming out can be lonely, terrifying and embarrassing.
Just like repressed gay people, repressed Jews don’t know how damaging it is to closet our religious and cultural selves; how invigorating it is to be open, honest and celebratory about who we are, or how empowering it is to be part of a community of boundary-crossers. So, my Hanukkah advice? Stop repressing and stop equivocating. Whatever closet you’re hiding in, whether it’s sexual, religious, professional, cultural, or just plain dull and repressive, light the Hanukkah candles (or don’t!), celebrate nonconformity — and, for God’s sake and yours, come out, please, wherever you are.
Full article with more about the advantages and reasons to come out at: http://www.forward.com/articles/14690/
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