Jewish Christmas

Have you always wondered, "Why Chinese food?"

When I was working on A Way From Here, almost everyone who read the script got to this scene and asked, “Isn’t there pork in that dumpling? Thea can’t eat that!”

Well yeah, there probably is. But Thea doesn’t know that. And Hu doesn’t know she has dietary restrictions. This particular exchange is a nod to the origins of what we call Jewish Christmas. Maybe you’ve wondered why Jewish people tend to eat Chinese food on Christmas Day but were afraid to ask.

The simplest answer would be, Chinese restauarants are always open on Christmas when everything else tends to be closed. But it’s more involved than that. There are actually a few interesting historical factors.

Jewish and Chinese immigrants to America originally lived very close to each other in New York’s Lower East Side. And there was generally no antisemitism among the Chinese as China was so geographically distanced from events in Europe. This made intermingling between the communities much easier. Jewish people felt comfortable in Chinese restaurants in way they might not in certain European-owned establishments.

And while many Jewish immigrants were adapting to this new world and experimenting with eating outside the home, loosening the strict Kosher dietary laws they had always known, they found it easiest to start with Chinese food. One of the main tenants of Kosher law is not to mix milk with meat, and there is a noticable absense of dairy in Chinese food.

But, how do Thea and her dumplings come in? Well ingredients in Chinese food are often minced together, mixed, wrapped, or hidden in ways that make them unrecognizable from their original form. So if something in there was NOT Kosher—well, out of sight, out of mind. Chinese food became a transition point for many Jewish people as they became more flexible with their diets.

So now, every Christmas, Jewish people across America get Chinese food and see a movie.