I know, I know Succos is not related to Thanksgiving!! I’m just relating what a friend said: that it was replacing Thanksgiving. It was a dumb thing to say and I didn’t answer her properly. I do think it is a beautiful holiday and it truly has become very popular in NYC. The city streets are decorated with booths, and folks are giving out glasses of wine and food! Just wonderful. But it’s a very new trend!
I’m so proud to find out about my Jewish ancestors. For some reason they converted to the Catholic faith. We don’t have a clue as to why they did that. One of my ancestors held found Texas!!!!!!!!
Also, people forget Thanksgiving’s origins in the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln instituted it to bring the country back together.
Heh-heh, it was ALWAYS “popular” in NYC, because NYC is heavily populated with Orthodox Jews. It is COMMANDED that this holiday be observed, it’s not just a “nice thing to do”.
Many Jews immigrating to this country found it necessary to jettison their faith in order to find scarce employment, which necessitated them working on the Sabbath and holidays. Or, they left their native countries in order to escape anti-semitism which had taken a life-threatening turn, such as pogroms or the York Massacre, and still felt threatened, so they converted. Does not matter if they converted. If the “convert” was a Jewish woman, and she was your direct maternal ancestor, as I said—a great grandmother, grandmother, mother, etc.—then I believe that you are yourself a Jew.