Random Thoughts on Everything

JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!!

Fast approaching, is that time of year when much of the world goes consumer crazy.

Whether your preference is for Christmas or Chanukah, for turkey and mince pies, donuts and latkes, or a mash up of both; our Judeo-Christian religions share the upcoming December Holidays.

Jesus and Christmas were born in Judea around 4BC and pre-dating this, in the 2nd century at a similar time of year, the Maccabees revolted against Judea’s barbaric, Seleucid invaders. The Maccabees recaptured the desecrated Jewish Temple of Jerusalem and this event inspired the festival of Chanukah. Our bibles are built upon this history. Educated academics, archeologists, historians, and people of the cloth, have based their various teachings upon these recorded events.

Like Mary I am a Jewish mother. I think our shared DNA gives me leeway to say, I doubt she meekly and without complaint, gave birth in that stable. The hay would have been dirty, the donkey too smelly, and Joseph not fully on board with the idea of Immaculate conception; and his wife (post birth) still being a virgin. It seems likely to me that the whole neighbourhood heard them yelling accusations and denials about infidelity. It must have been a well timed distraction when the three wise men arrived waving their box of frankincense. Mary no doubt pointed out to them the paucity of the manger, the lack of birthing pool, epidural and missing spritz of Evian spray. Hopefully these three men were wise enough to have included warm blankets and a hot stone massage voucher wrapped about their gifts of myrrh and gold. As I expect a shivering Mary told them, the town of Bethlehem can be damn nippy on a winter’s evening.

The Maccabees, having recaptured the Temple found themselves short of oil. Sadly this being pre Ocado, they lit a sacred Menorah using only a single vial of oil found amongst the wreckage. Miracle of miracles the lights lasted eight days until more oil was procured. And that of course is why we spend a week stuffing ourselves with cholesterol inducing greasy foods and joyfully licking blobs of jammy donut from our sticky fingers.

With these stories in mind, I have to ask, does anyone truly believe the loud Pro-Palestinian cry that Jesus was born as one of them?

In 4BC, Judea was not called Palestine. Over one hundred years after Jesus was born, invading Romans invented the name Syria Palestina, and used it for a short time. After many more land invasions and endless renaming ceremonies, came 400 years of inclusion in the Ottoman Empire. It was not until 1917 when British rule began that Palestina was dragged from a dark corner, its mothballs dusted off and polished into the name Palestine. I imagine the Brits thought they would teach Johnny Foreigner a lesson, by picking a version of the name first chosen as punishment by the Roman overlords who had sacked Judea back in 5BC. For just thirty one years in the land’s entire history, both Jewish and local Arab communities became known as Palestinian under the control of the British Mandate.

Returning to the nativity scene, it strikes me that Christmas is really about Mary. Once she had stopped berating Joseph for being a better carpenter than he was a midwife, it was she who mothered, nurtured and kept Jesus safe from rampant pre-penicillin diseases. Mary would have spoilt him, piling up birthday and Chanukah gifts (one for every night of the 8 day festival) and fried donuts to celebrate. She would have taught him numbers and letters and table manners. Who else would have spent the time tutoring him in Oscar worthy debate and epic speech writing? Critiqued his sermons whilst insisting that he needed a haircut, better clothes, a proper job, and a more suitable partner than Mary Magdalene. ‘Have you met my boy, the Messiah?’ She must have proudly asked their neighbours.

In the decades since the holocaust, when the collective guilt of six million dead caused everyone to play a friendlier, more inclusive game; Christmas and Chanukah learned to get along. But out on the streets where decorated fir trees hugged Menorah lights, people began questioning the colour of Jesus’ skin. The BLM wanted him black, Europeans depicted him as white and Muslims wanted him brown. Sadly the practice of Christianity, once so cohesive, now seems buried in a dithering woke-ness. Kind acts and misguided political statements performed to the theme tune of All Things Bright and Beautiful. When videos are released on TikTok and Instagram that claim Jesus was born a Palestinian, where is the Church outcry, the rebuttal and absolute condemnation of this mad idea? The man lived in Judea and the Galilee, he looked Middle Eastern (as do many Israelis) and he lived as a Jew. He gave the Catholics a Pope, the Vatican, many wonderful frescos, and reason to vilify the Jews whilst also worshiping one, with no sense of how great that irony. Pro-Palestinians, blinded by hate have no idea that Christmas has been cancelled for Gazans since 2007. Celebrating anything Christian there, will likely get them harassed and/or killed.

In conclusion. My grandmother always said she was Russian, born in Warsaw. The family laughed at her and said no, she was Polish. Whilst doing research for my book I checked this, and for the years in which she was born and lived there, Warsaw was indeed Russian. Sorry grandma, ethnicity matters, and your identity like that of Jesus, cannot be messed with.

Jesus was never Palestinian he was a Judean … fact not fantasy.

In 2023/24 I was lucky to be chosen as one of the Genesis Foundation’s ten emerging writers. My debut novel is called The House in Mile End: romantic betrayal, Jewish East End gangsters and a mystifying legacy are woven together by a box of love letters from the 1920s. All I want for Chanukah is an agent.

Instagram: @s.i.roystonon