December 1 signals the real beginning of of the “holiday season” in Lille, northeastern France’s largest city. In Montclair, the holiday season means Christmas and a bit of Hanukkah. In Lille, it means lots of Christmas.
On that date, all the merchants drag out their Christmas decorations, which are much less showy than what we find in our own stores.The outdoor Christmas market, a major tourist attraction, has been going strong for a couple of weeks already but now the small merchants are joining the commercial festivities; the stores are even open on Sunday, a rarity in most French locales.
But Christmas is very secular. I saw no Santas or nativity scenes; decorations are understated. There’s no tree in the center of town on public property. France believes in laicite´, secularism…sort of.
Hanukkah-or to use the French spelling Hanoucca- wasn’t even on the December radar in Lille with its small Jewish population. Finding wrapping paper that wasn’t red or green became a challenge and the holiday was a decidedly private affair. On Sunday afternoon before the lighting of the first candle, we drove to a neighborhood just outside of Lille where our cousins Sid, Nicola and their three kids live.
In addition to the family, there was another guest Olivier, French born who had recently discovered his Jewish roots. Olivier’s father had always said that the family was Spanish and was different from its French neighbors. Olivier has been researching and surmises that the family left the Iberian peninsula and had probably headed for the Holland but ended up in France where the family has lived for generations.
This was Olivier’s first Hanukkah. We enjoyed just about the best latkes I’d ever eaten along with Sid’s grandmother’s brisket (or poitrine in France), followed by Hanukkah apple cake. Both kids and adults played several rousing rounds of dreidel with chocolate euros, of course. We told the Hanukkah story, lit the hanukiyyah and sang a song or two- just like at home.
We talked politics, for it was the day of the first round of regional elections and we wondered what the results would be. Glued to the TV later that evening, we found out that the FN, Marine Le Pen’s far right party, had taken the northern region. For the first time in 40 years, the region had not voted Socialist. As in the U.S., many people can’t understand this political phenomenon and are worried about the trend and what it means for the country’s future.
The talk didn’t spoil the kids’ evening, however. They received their simple gifts and then we headed home to do homework for the next day’s school.
I had deliberately extended my trip to include the beginning of Hanukkah. If I think about it, I can certainly say that there wasn’t much difference between what we used to do with our own children in Montclair and how my grandchildren celebrated that evening even though we were three thousand miles away from Montclair.
Perhaps that’s one of the beauties of Judaism, its portability. It almost makes no difference where you are: the rituals are the same, the words are the same, even the food is usually somewhat familiar.
Happy Hanukkah/ Hanoucca!
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Thank you for sharing your Chanuka (and Thanksgiving in a previous post) experiences in Lille. I feel I am right there with you, enjoying and observing French life with Jewish and American bifocals.