An episode of the American television series "The O.C." portrays the "December Dilemma" for protagonist Seth Cohen, who isn’t sure how he should celebrate the holiday season with his Jewish father and Christian mother. He wears a hat combining a Jewish yarmulke and a Santa cap, which he calls a "yarmaclaus." As testimony to the kitschification of seasonal taste, the "yarmaclaus" sold out before you could say "Judah Maccabee."
Christmas and Hanukkah in Berlin are rife with tragic memories of the Third Reich, and its streets are haunted by the ghosts of Jewish souls whose names are commemorated with bronze plaques, marking the spot where men, women and children were ripped from their homes and sent to death camps. But every time a visitor is tempted to blame every German for the Holocaust, he finds another example of the "Righteous Gentiles," the many heroic men and women who saved Jews because they couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Tucked away in an alley at 39 Rosenthalerstrasse in Mitte, a tiny museum now under renovation commemorates one Otto Weidt, a Gentile paperhanger who set up a small brush-and-broom factory for sheltered blind and deaf Jews to use their skilled hands to work with straw. After the SS raided the factory and arrested the Jews, Herr Weidt marched down to the transit camp where they awaited deportation to the death camps and, at great personal risk, insisted his employees were doing valuable work for the Third Reich. He "convinced" them with extravagant bribes. In subsequent raids, he hid Jews in a tiny room whose door was camouflaged by a cupboard until an informer told the Gestapo where they were hidden. Most eventually died at Auschwitz, but two survivors tell on videotape of their memories.
The Talmud, the sacred book of the Jews, teaches that "to save one life is as if you have saved the world." This is a message for all seasons wherever and whoever we may be. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah.