Inclusive Hilarity

In just a few days, the majority of the world will celebrate Christmas. On the 8th day following the day that is set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the secular New Year will be observed.

In preparation for these worldwide celerbations, a local paper shared how to say Merriy Christmas and Happy New Year in 81 different languages.

Now, I don’t know about you. But whenever I see anything like this, I always look to see if we’ve been included.

I am happy to report that not just one but TWO of our languages were represented.

Now before you completely fly off the handle, you should remember that there are about 140,000 Christians who live in Israel. Most of them (about 120,000) are Christian Arabs. Although…I am wondering if Christian Arabs use Hebrew as their vernacular or Arabic. Given that they are living in a predominantly Hebrew-speaking country, it stands to reason that there would be an appropriate greeting in Hebrew.

That being said, this is what our local paper had listed:

Mo’adim Lesimkha and Shanah Tova.

Once I picked myself off of the floor, I remembered that the proper greeting for Christmas should have read:

Chag Molad Sameach. Happy Birth Festival.

The second Jewish language they included was Yiddish.

I have no answer for this one. Are there Yiddish-speakers who celebrate Christmas? Other than Colin Powell?