Alef: The NEXT Conversation

The New Years Tree

By Rita Kreynin

I love a New Years Tree.  No, not the Christmas fir tree. The New Years fir tree.

What is a New Years Tree you may be wondering?  One of my favorite memories from my childhood is that every year, around the middle of December, my parents would get our family a yolka that would be in our living room, adorned with festive lights, decorations, and presents underneath to be opened by my family on the morning of the New Year.

WAIT A SECOND!  My family is Jewish, why on earth are we celebrating a holiday that sounds identical to Christmas?

I should clarify. When I was four years old, my family emigrated to the U.S from the former Soviet Union.  When I was in the first grade, in an effort to illustrate religious diversity, our teacher split the class up according to which religion was celebrated in the home.  Trying to determine where I fit, I explained to the class that my parents were Jewish but that we put up a decorated tree for the holidays.  My fellow first graders assured me I must be half Jewish and half Christian because a tree in my house must have meant that I celebrated Christmas.

That day I came home very confused – were my parents keeping something from me?  Not according to my mother.   She explained to me that because religious observance was discouraged under communism in the Soviet Union, people didn’t celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas.  The New Year was the holiday celebrated by all Soviets and at the heart of the celebration was the decorated yolka, which was introduced to imperial Russia by Peter the Great in the late 17th century.  To offer a little history — in 1916 the yolka was first banned by the state church council and thereafter by the Soviet officials, but in 1935 the ban was lifted and New Years became an official state-recognized holiday.  From 1935 until 1991, when the Soviet Union crumbled, New Years was one of the most beloved holidays in the land.

My parents stopped putting up a real New Years tree in our house around the time I was eight, when they figured out that, in America, Jews don’t have fir trees in their homes.  When I begged really hard, I managed to convince them to assemble a fake tree, but only succeeded in that a few times.  These days, the aroma of pine needles coming off of a Christmas tree makes me nostalgic and giddy.  If my apartment were big enough, I would probably get a New Years tree this holiday season.  It would be lovely right next to my menorah.

Photo by Ed Bierman, licensed under Creative Commons.

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