Every October I face the same internal question: Should I celebrate and “observe” Halloween?
Until I was 18, the answer was an obvious “no.” In my household, celebrating Halloween in any way, shape, or form was forbidden. My parents insisted that we treat is as any other day of the year, because of the holiday’s Christian and Pagan origins; they said we couldn’t celebrate it because we were Jewish. And years later, I’m still not sure if the underlying history is a problem, or if I’m sitting out on a secular holiday that’s lost its religiosity and become simply American.
As a kid, I didn’t protest against the Halloween injunction. While I loved candy and dressing up, both of those were present in Purim, and the idea of indulging in horror or gross-outs was the opposite of appealing. Why have Halloween when I could get the good without the bad only a few months later?
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