This time of year, during the “holiday season,” many Jews struggle with how to best negotiate our interaction with the society and culture around us. Can we give Christmas or year-end gifts to our paper carrier? Can we go to our company’s holiday party if it is going to be Christmas-themed?

For millennia, from the time that we have lived as a minority people and religion in a society with a dominant, foreign culture, we have had to grapple with questions like these. How much should we engage with and integrate into the larger society, and what are our red lines?

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