The Bowdoin Orient

Before you label me as an overly sensitive, politically correct Grinch, let me make a few things clear: I play Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker on repeat, I own several ugly sweaters and I almost liked Bowdoin’s Instagram of an asymmetrically affixed wreath on the front of Hubbard. I enjoy returning to Reed House at 2 a.m. to see the tree that we decorated and the menorah in our front window. I, like most others, thoroughly enjoy the holiday season.

However, I wasn’t thrilled when I came back home one afternoon to a wreath hanging on my front door, affixed that morning by one of Santa’s elves, most likely in the form of a wonderful member of Facilities. Though many will argue that wreaths are of Greco-Roman pagan origins or have simply become de-Christianized, I believe that wreaths, especially when adorned with red ribbons, are indubitably a Christian symbol.

Growing up in a Jewish household, my family abstained from festooning our house with wreaths and lights, instead placing our electric menorah in our front window. For my family, this abstinence was a reminder that, unlike the majority of our town, we were not Christian.This religious separatism, if you will, instilled in me a sense of pride, not only for my Jewish heritage, but also for the fact that my family was different.

When I approach my front door or when I sit down at my table in Moulton and count four wreaths on the interior windows, I am reminded that we live in an overwhelmingly, though simultaneously subtly, Christian society. Our “non-denominational” chapel chimes every fifteen minutes, its beautiful stained glass windows depicting New Testament scenes. (For this reason, we didn’t bring my grandmother inside when she came to visit.)

The omnipresent wreaths represent the normalization of practices reflective of an unchallenged Christian hegemony; we live in a world where our calendar, vacations and seasonal decorations (not to mention vaginal autonomy and rights to marriage) are dominated by Christocentric practices. Intended to be an innocuous way to spread holiday cheer, these wreaths are subtle but constant reminders to those of us who do not identify with Christianity that we exist within this Christian society. When I enter my house, which is more than 25 percent Jewish, this branding of my space is a reminder that I am part of such a society, even on our diverse, non-denominational campus.

I will still throw out a few proposals for making our campus more inclusive in this sense. One alternative is to replace the red bows with more neutral ones—black and white, for example. While this would be a step in the right direction, it would reduce neither the wreaths’ overwhelming presence nor their symbolic value. I propose swapping out these wreaths for lights across campus, akin to the string lights hanging in the Union and from the sprinklers in all of our rooms. Though these lights are still associated with Christmas, they possess a more universal appeal. Multiple winter solstice observances fall into the category of “festivals of light,” in which lights are used to illuminate the darkest part of the year. Hanging lights from the building would honor these multiple holidays, while simultaneously increasing aesthetic appeal and providing additional safety.

I hesitate to end this with proposals, for I believe that that detracts from my intended message. This seemingly trivial issue may not matter in the “real world,” where Salvation Army Santas wish me a Merry Christmas outside of the supermarket or where my friends trivialize my religion by asking what I got for Chanukah last night. I do believe, however, that it matters as we continue to strive to create inclusive spaces on campus. I acknowledge that these thoughts come from a place of extreme privilege when compared to more obvious, oppressive marginalization on campus. However, I hope that my sentiments resonate with others questioning and challenging larger unchecked subtleties and norms on our campus. I hope that we can work together to deconstruct and reconstruct our spaces here to reflect the multiple levels of diversity that Bowdoin is supposed to represent.

Jonah Watt is a member of the Class of 2018.

Every Sunday morning for 10 years, I sat in my Hebrew school classroom, passing around a small tin tzedakah box and emptying my pockets full of loose change into it. At the end of the year, we dumped out the contents and counted the money inside. In an exercise of early childhood democracy, we would vote as a class where to donate the tzedakah, and then our teacher would send a check to the animal shelter or local food pantry of our choosing.

I grew up in a Jewish family and a vibrant Jewish community, raised on the values of tzedakah (justice), tikkun olam (repairing the world) and l’dor v’dor (from generation to generation). I was taught how to promote justice, how to engage in acts of repairing the world and how it was my responsibility to care for the planet and to ensure that it was left in the same condition, if not better, for my children and future generations. (Finding a Jewish spouse and producing these future generations was another value imparted on me from an early age.)When I came to Bowdoin, I attended Hillel candle lighting for the first few weeks, and then less and less, much to my mother’s chagrin. Instead, I spent more and more time at Bowdoin Climate Action (BCA) meetings, an initially daunting community filled with what I perceived to be radical eco-terrorists.

For a while, it seemed that my Judaism had been put on the backburner, replaced by a newfound love for climate action. That is, until a few weeks ago, when I was asked to be on a panel for the teach-in. In preparation for this event, I dug down and found my Jewish identity and values deeply sedimented in my climate activism.The panelists were asked to find texts from our religions that shape our relationship with nature and climate change. I struggled to find excerpts from our torah on how to avoid disastrous floods (besides ushering two of every animal species into an ark) or how to combat the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on not only our climate but our political and economic structures as well.

After reflecting on all of my Hebrew school torah study, I came to realize that there were no explicit teachings or stories that informed my stance on climate change; rather, the values that I had grown up with had become internalized and, unknowingly, drove my advocacy for climate justice.

In my work with BCA, I find examples of tzedakah, tikkun olam and l’dor v’dor. Fighting for a more sustainable, fossil-free world, we advocate for climate and racial justice and act to ensure that we can pass on an inheritable world to our children. Though I had not realized it until I was asked to find direct relations between my faith and my stance on climate change, my Jewish values had been informing my quest for climate justice since the beginning.As I campaign for fossil fuel divestment, I think back to my days in Hebrew school, passing around the tzedakah box and donating loose change to worthy causes. Though the contents of a tzedakah box and the contents of our endowment are vastly different pools of money, I firmly believe that they should be regulated by the same guiding principles with which I was raised. And though I may not be the one voting on where our endowment’s tzedakah money is invested, I sure as hell won’t stand idly by as they go towards industries antithetical to my values. 

Just as I know that five-year-old me would not have voted to donate our tzedakah money to Shell, Exxon or any other corporation that profits from the destruction of our planet and our people, I know with equal conviction that current-day me would not support such investments in injustice, either.