Jewish Groups: Okay to Say "Merry Christmas"

The Catholic League issued the following press release yesterday:

November 30, 2005

JEWS SAY IT’S OK TO CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS

On December 1st, there will be a press conference convened by Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C.; it begins at 1:30 p.m. in the Murrow Room. (For more information, call Bryan Rudnick at 561-499-3201.)

In attendance will be the organization’s president, Don Feder, as well as Michael Horowitz from the Hudson Institute, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the president of Toward Tradition, and Rabbi Yehuda Levin of Jews for Morality; entertainer Jackie Mason will speak via conference call.

Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation was organized to combat anti-Christian bias in government, the news media, Hollywood, public education, and from activist groups (see www.jews4fairness.org).

In a recent column, Don Feder wrote, “The secularist assault on Christmas (unwittingly aided by the perpetually aggrieved and sensitivity-whipped) is one front in the war on America’s Judeo-Christian heritage.” Similarly, Rabbi Lapin has said, “Christianizing the culture is not the problem for Jews, secularizing it is.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue weighed in on this matter today:

“Christians have no better friends in the Jewish community than the group Don Feder will assemble tomorrow in Washington, D.C. Totally secure in their own religion, they have complete respect for Christianity. And they are scrupulously fair: they know that the war on Christmas is not only unjust, it is against the best interests of all Americans. That is because our liberties spring not from government, but from God. Ergo, attempts by radical secularists must be resisted with vigor if our heritage is to be preserved.

“I urge all those in the media to be present at this extraordinary press conference tomorrow.”

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation and discrimination.