Dual Usage

October 8, 2006 - 7:56 PM by Sarah

The decorating of one’s sukkah is, for most people, a pleasurable experience that allows one to relive memories of holidays past. The children make decorations in school, and as they grow up, their collections of finger-painted drawings, popsicle-stick images of sukkahs, construction-paper chains, and glittery styrofoam pomegranates are stored carefully away and taken out each year to be hung from sukkah walls and ceilings. Guests bring water-resistant posters and festive shiny hanging-decor, and these, too, come out of storage each year and remind one of family and friends. I imagine that Christians feel about decorating their Christmas trees the way Jews feel about decorating their Sukkahs.

In Israel, the comparison goes a step further. At the numerous stores and stands that pop up on street corners, with sukkah decorations for sale, what we in America know as “Christmas tree lights” are sold here as “Sukkah lights.” American immigrants like to smirk at the irony, but the fact that native Israelis often do not understand the humor, because to them they are just sukkah lights, is yet another marvelous example of what it means for people who practice Judaism to have a home of our own.

Sukkah lights in action, photo courtesy of Lizrael:

sukkah lights