Mutual Understanding Between Jews, Christians Goes Beyond Joint Parties

Ms. Valerie Orlean’s commentary (“For Us, It’s Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to All,” Dec. 22) has sadly missed the point. It is no great feat in mainstream America to co-celebrate these two holidays with mutual understanding and cooperation. However, the author’s own description of Jews and Christians gleefully peppered among generations belies the seriousness of this situation from the Jewish perspective.

Let’s not confuse our desire for inter-religious understanding and respect as an agreement that a child can be brought up as both a Christian and a Jew. This act of common exposure cheapens and deprecates both faiths, while implying that any act of religious celebration, as beautiful as it may be, is enough to transmit the values and mission of either faith. A child can be both a Jew and Christian in the same way that he can be both a Jew and a Muslim or a Christian and a Muslim--bizarre notions on all counts.

Clearly, Jewish assimilation within one or two generations is the result of the joyful depiction by Ms. Orleans. There is no substitute for the commitment by an intermarried couple to raise their children as knowledgeable Jews. Anything else leads to either Christianity or secularism, both of which occur often enough by choice, but in the case of Judaism, a dreadful tragedy when it occurs by default.

PAUL S. SHEIKEWITZ, Laguna Beach