In this session, we’ll explore one of Chanukah’s most fascinating contradictions: a holiday rooted in resistance to assimilation that has become thoroughly woven into the fabric of the American winter season. How did the festival of anti-assimilation become a fixture of public squares and shopping malls?
Drawing on a surprising—and even entertaining—Supreme Court case about the Establishment Clause and public religious displays, we’ll investigate how American law, culture, and public ritual have shaped the way Chanukah is understood and celebrated. Together, we’ll unpack the tensions between pirsumei nisa—publicizing the miracle—and the ways the miracle itself has been absorbed into a broader, often secular, holiday landscape.
Shira Michaeli (she/her) is fortunate to work in the devotional wrestling toward doing good, well within the Jewish nonprofit field. Shira holds degrees in Jewish ethics and human rights from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University, respectively, where she researched the utilization of religion as a political tool within liberal reproductive politics in America. As a research operations assistant at Rosov Consulting, Shira is thrilled to nerd out about Jewish qualitative data for a living.
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