A tree crosses the line

Lev Stesin concludes his article (“Let there be tree!” Comment & Features, December 21) by saying: “The [Christmas] tree will only make our homes more beautiful and ourselves stronger to meet another year of our eternal struggle.” While it is not clear what he means by “our eternal struggle,” it is very clear that the idea of Jews having Christmas trees in their homes will only weaken them spiritually, culturally and ethnically. In fact, in almost every country and era, Jews having Christmas trees was always seen, at best, as trying to be accepted by their gentile neighbors and associates and, at worst, as a sign of troubling assimilation that never ended with a tree.

His insistence that the Christmas tree has become very “secularized” means nothing. People and cultures give meaning to symbols, and not the opposite. Using Stesin’s reasoning, even the crucifix is nothing more than the structure ancient Rome used to execute criminals and enemies, so why not wear it as jewelry? And Stesin himself concurs that the origins of the Christmas tree are “indeed religious and Christian.”

Finally, despite having come from a family of “very secular progressive Jewish types, the ones who devour pork on Yom Kippur,” my parents saw Jews having Christmas trees as crossing the line into Christian culture, no matter how secularized it might have become.

GERSHON HARRIS Hatzor Haglilit