Marlowe's Shade

Monday, December 13, 2004

Channukah Journey

I took a drive in the country this weekend to get my daughter to conk out in the carseat, as some days that's the only way she will nap. Sometimes when the signal to my Christian music station fades, the receiver in the minivan will automatically tune into one of the 3 NPR stations nearby. This is not as lame an excuse as it sound for listening to NPR, here in MA you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a public radio station, every college town has one or two and they all cluster around the same part of the dial.

Instead of the usual tripe, they were broadcasting Chanukkah in Story and Song, narrated by Leonard Nimoy. It was one of the most exquisite Chanukkah experiences I've had, listening to haunting melodies in Ladino, Yiddish and Hebrew, while twilight fell on the timeless New England countryside.

However the same nagging thought always comes up whenever NPR runs this kind of very worthwhile Jewish programming. How do they reconcile the celebration of Jewish culture to their blatant antagonism to the State of Israel?

It's a shame, because NPR occasionally has some terrific programming, which at this point I will only be exposed to by sheer accident.
papijoe 8:57 AM
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