Happy Chanukah from The RP: How Adam Sandler Saved American Jewry

As Jews around the county join with their families to celebrate the Festival of Lights, I wrote an essay for The Times of Israel celebrating the song that made Chanukah cool, and saved American Jewry (sort of…).  Here’s an excerpt:

It was easy to understand why so many U.S. Jews – particularly our youngest – took refuge by fading into the multi-colored fabric of secularized Christianity that enveloped American culture. With Gentile discrimination so diffuse and subtle, the only remaining strident enemy in the 3,000-year battle for Jewish survival was, in fact, ourselves.

But then the 1990s brought forth a modern-day Judah Maccabee: Adam Sandler.

OK, I exaggerate just a little.

What the ’90s did bring was an army of modern Maccabees, in the form of prominent, familiar, likable Jews thrust into the pop media spotlight: Jews that were both clearly identifiable and proud of being both American and Jewish.

This helped produce a sea change in Christian Americans’ acceptance of their Jewish neighbors. In the vast center of the country where few Jews lived, ignorance previously had bred distrust and suspicion. Now, through the magic of television – and shows such as Northern Exposure,Beverly Hills 90210, Friends, and most prominently, Seinfeld – Jewish comedians, actors, and characters entered the living rooms of middle America. Rural citizens who’d never met a Jew before now “knew” dozens, and understood that “they were just like us” – maybe a bit wackier.

Just as significant was the impact on Jewish Americans. We could now hold our heads up a bit higher, feel a little more comfortable to publicly pronounce our faith. We were now the tellers of Jewish jokes, alternatively wry and self-deprecating, instead of divisive and mean-spirited.

It was a phenomenon that Jonathan Alter – in his famous 2000Newsweek cover piece heralding Joe Lieberman’s history-making Vice-Presidential candidacy – labeled the “Seinfeldizing of America.”

And at its epicenter in 1994 was a hastily produced, three-and-a-half minute musical segment on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.”