An unusual pairing

“The Chinese [Restaurant Association] of the United States would like to extend our thanks to The Jewish People. We do not completely understand your dietary customs…But we are proud and grateful that your GOD insists you eat our food on Christmas.”

Jewish people eating Chinese food on December 25 has been a unique tradition
By Brandon Yip, Senior Columnist

Jewish people eating at a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day has been a longstanding tradition. It has been parodied on Saturday Night Live and has been the subject of academic papers. Even US Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan, referenced it during her 2010 nomination hearing—as reported by Newsweek in December 2016. When Senator Lindsey Graham asked the nominee where she had spent the previous Christmas, Kagan paused, then quipped, “You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.”

The origins of this unique tradition began after the arrival of Chinese and Jewish immigrants in the New York borough of Manhattan in the late 1800s. Both groups settled in the Lower East Side neighbourhood, living adjacent to each other. So, it was apropos Chinese and Jewish people would interact and develop a civil kinship in their respective communities.

According to a December 2019 CTV News article, Jewish people do not observe Christmas as a holiday. As a result, many Jewish families are usually free to go out for dinner on December 25 and Chinese restaurants are the only restaurants open that day. Jennifer 8. Lee, author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, provides further insight—as reported by PJ Grisar in an article for forward.com: “The Jews and Chinese were the two largest non-Christian immigrant communities in America. They didn’t keep a Christian calendar, so their restaurants were open on Christmas.”

In addition, Adam Chandler offers an interesting perspective in his December 2014 article, published in The Atlantic: “For many Jewish Americans, the night before Christmas conjures up visions not of sugar plums, but of plum sauce slathered over roast duck or an overstocked plate of beef lo mein, a platter of General Tso’s, and (maybe) some hot and sour soup.”

According to Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, author of A Kosher Christmas: ‘Tis the Season to be Jewish, the earliest known documentation of this tradition was revealed in a New York Times article in 1935, when a Chinese restaurant owner travelled to Newark, New Jersey, bringing chow mein to a Jewish children’s home on Christmas Day. Plaut states another reason Jewish people enjoy eating at a Chinese restaurant is that they feel it is a safe place to gather with their families. “There are no Christian symbols on the walls,” he said to forward.com in December 2021. “There’s no mixing of meat and dairy, and the pork that is evident is hidden. Hence the phrase ‘safe treyf.’ You can’t see it when you eat it so it’s OK. And the steamed pot sticker looks to be the equivalent of kreplach.”

Interestingly, Plaut says Chinese food is the perfect food choice for Jewish people because the ingredients used in Chinese cooking adhere to strict “kosher” dietary standards. Plaut, in a December 2020 interview with vox.com, elaborates: “In terms of kosher law, a Chinese restaurant is a lot safer than an Italian restaurant. In Italian food, there is [a] mixing of meat and dairy. A Chinese restaurant doesn’t mix meat and dairy, because Chinese cooking is virtually dairy-free.”

Plaut also notes that Christmas Day is the only national holiday where American Jews feel uncomfortable because of the religious underpinnings—stating in the same interview with forward.com: “That’s why people, rather than staying home and perhaps sulking or feeling idle, say ‘it’s a day off. Why not get together with family and friends?’”

Jewish people eating at a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day has become a unique tradition that has been embraced by the Jewish and Chinese communities. According to PJ Grisar, each year before Christmas, a unique handwritten sign goes viral on Jewish Facebook: “The Chinese [Restaurant Association] of the United States would like to extend our thanks to The Jewish People. We do not completely understand your dietary customs…But we are proud and grateful that your GOD insists you eat our food on Christmas.”

Plaut says the handwritten sign is not authentic, yet he admits that it is the perfect embodiment, revealing the truth about Jewish peoples’ love of Chinese food on Christmas Day: “We have found no evidence of this being authentic or not. It’s urban folklore. But it doesn’t matter because the message is funny, and it just goes to show you this is a real phenomenon.”