In my family of origin, Thanksgiving is our biggest holiday. I come from secular Jewish folks, which means we don’t celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah is a simple matter of candle lighting and gift giving. (Historically, Hanukkah is a pretty small holiday on the Jewish calendar in any case.) My spouse’s family does celebrate Christmas, but they’re on the other coast, so we sometimes visit them for that, but stay with my family for the earlier feast of turkey and stuffing. It’s an odd holiday for us to be celebrating, though, when I think about it.
Thanksgiving, you see, was essentially created to honor a Protestant Separatist group. Last year, of course, many American Jews created a hybrid Thanksgivukkah for the once-in-a-lifetime overlap of the holidays, honoring both their cultural origins and the history of their adopted nation (and a love of holidays with food).
It also seems odd for me, as a person dedicated to social justice, to be celebrating a holiday that represents the takeover of Native American lands by European colonists. Many Native people consider Thanksgiving a day of mourning. Others have urged us to repurpose it for education, such as Jacqueline Keeler of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux, who wrote in a 1999 essay of using the holiday as a time to recognize the Pilgrim’s “bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness.”
As a Jew, I understand the deep feelings that go along with reflecting on the diaspora and genocide of one’s people. And I cringe when I think of how my people has taken land and lives in our turn.
Can we use Thanksgiving as a time to reflect on such things? Can we each commit to actions to help mend the rifts that tear people apart based on race, religion, nationality, or other deep aspects of identity? If we are not Native Americans, for example, can we take time to share with our children (or any of our other relatives or friends) the stories of Native lives along with the traditional story of Thanksgiving? Can we use the holiday to talk about what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri (or many other places) and the systemic racism that still plagues our country and our world?
These are tough topics, and not always easy conversations to have. It strikes me, though, that they are among the best ways we can honor the holiday and our fellow citizens, looking back to our country’s past, but also working towards a better future.