The Girl Who Wanted a Christmas Tree |
I don’t remember her name. But I remember her Christmas tree.
She and I were both about ten, in the same class, and I happened to visit the day her family put up their tree. It was tall and green, lit with colorful lights and gleaming with shiny ornaments. The family looked at it proudly. After I left, I burst into tears on the street. I wanted a Christmas tree!
It can be tough to be a Jewish kid in December.
I was luckier than most, because I lived in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park, then about forty percent Jewish. Only one house on my block had a Christmas tree. My brothers and I, like the other neighborhood kids, cut out construction paper menorahs and taped them to the windows, along with strings of letters reading........