What Is the Proper Jewish Response to Thanksgiving?

With turkey alongside dairy pumpkin pie, the Thanksgiving table - in all its conflicted glory - encapsulates what it is to be an American Jew.

Rabbi Jonah Geffen

Nov 24, 2013 8:35 PM

Every year for Thanksgiving my family leaves our “shtetl” on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and head to the heartland. Year after year, dozens of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents gather in the small...

Comments

Sign in to join the conversation.

Sort comments by

1

ICYMI

An electoral campaign poster bearing the portrait of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party. Tel Aviv, April 3, 2019

Netanyahu Deserves to Win the Election. And We Israelis Deserve Him

Jeroboam I praying to the false idols of the golden calves in the temples of Dan and Bethel, lower section of the lancet window of Solomon from under the main North Rose stained glass window, 1233, on the Northern side of the transept of Chartres Cathedral, Eure-et-Loir, France

Meet the Real King David

FILE Photo: A sloth sleeps while hanging from a tree.

Why Do We Need Sleep? Israeli Scientists Solve the Mystery

Then Representative-elect Ilhan Omar attends a press conference in the capitol, Washington D.C., November 30, 2018.

Keep It Up, Ilhan Omar

Jordan Peterson. Has a simple explanation for his extraordinary popularity: In a culture that sanctifies victimhood, he proposes that people confront life’s inevitable pain unflinchingly.

The Enlightment According to Jordan Peterson

Cyclone Numa

The Forecast: Stronger Hurricanes in the Mediterranean

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a conference on Peace and Security in the Middle East in Warsaw, Poland, February 14, 2019.

With Poland, Netanyahu Discovers the Limits of Playing With History

ILLUSTRATION: Amos Oz

Between Zionism and Hellenism: Amos Oz on Secular Judaism

“Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel in Rome (c. 1508-1512).

In the Bigynnyng: A Brief History of the English Bible

Benny Gantz outside his home in Rosh Ha'ayin during a protest by members of Israel's Druze community, January 14, 2019.

Benny Gantz, the General Coming to End the Netanyahu Era

Benny Morris and his wife Leah at their home in Srigim.

'Israel Will Decline, and Jews Will Be a Persecuted Minority. Those Who Can Will Flee to America'

An artist’s rendering of Oumuamua. “It waited in place, like a buoy in the ocean, until the ‘ship’ of the solar system ran into it.”

If True, This Could Be One of the Greatest Discoveries in Human History

Iraqi and foreign mercenary members of a private security company, stand on the rooftop of a house in Baghdad, 18 September, 2007.

Infamous Private Paramilitary Firm Blackwater Planning Comeback. First Stop: Syria

The Arous brochure for European tourists.

The Mossad Ran a Fake Diving Resort for Tourists in Sudan. This Is the Incredible Story Behind It

Top Secret Israeli Cyberattack Firm, Revealed

Discovery of a missing piece of Antikythera Mechanism on the Aegean sea floor

Missing Piece of World's Oldest Computer Found on Aegean Seabed

Consulate staff seen behind the entrance of the Saudi Arabia's Consulate in Istanbul. Oct. 17, 2018

The Grisly Hit-job on Khashoggi Is a Disaster for Israel

Donald Trump meets with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, July 7, 2017

Ex-Mossad Chief: Russia Ran Trump for President

Relief of throne-bearing soldiers in their native clothing at the tomb of Xerxes I, demonstrating the satrapies under his rule: List of soldiers under Xerxes' rule: Persian, Median, Elamite, Parthian, Arian, Bactrian, Sogdian, Choresmian, Zarangian, Arachosian, Sattagydian, Gandharan, Hindush, Sakahaumavarga, Sakatigraxauda, Babyloan, Assyrian, Arab, Egyptian, Armenia, Cappadocian, Lydian, Ionian, Saka, Skudrian, anotehr Ionian tribe, Libyan and Ethiopian

2,500-year-old Persian Military Base Found in Israel

An evangelical woman from the U.S. picking grapes in the West Bank. Free volunteers is just one of the ways Christians help settlers

Revealed: The Evangelical Money Flowing Into the West Bank