Christmas still rules in Australia’s ‘secular’ schools

My patience with Christmas and its omnipresence in public schools each December ran out this year in October.

Shelves were still heaving with Halloween lollies when my daughter’s public school on Sydney’s North Shore sent an email about a “fun competition” being run by our state member, Matt Cross.

Children in Stage 2 (Grade 3 and 4) were invited to submit creative, colourful drawings for a chance to feature on Cross’s end-of-year card for the electorate.

Initially, I felt a spark of excitement. My daughter would usually leap at an opportunity like this. Then I saw the theme: Christmas in Australia.

My heart sank. I knew exactly what my daughter would say: “That’s not for me. I celebrate Chanukah, not Christmas”.

Reading Cross's email ten days after the anniversary of October 7, I found myself in tears — frustrated, exhausted, and deeply sad.

Was it too much? Maybe. But honestly, Jews in Australia have been walking on a knife’s edge. We’ve endured violence, harassment, doxxing, and alienation simply for believing Israel has a right to exist.

Personally, I’ve been targeted by accounts with nearly a million followers. I’ve received threats against myself and my home. I held my daughter as she shook and cried seeing people waving signs emblazoned with a crossed-out Jewish star — a symbol that defines us as a family in so many ways.

Frankly, I was overdue for a cry. But it wasn’t just that.

I’ve been navigating Christmas as a mother since my daughter left the warm, heimishe bubble of her Jewish preschool in the San Francisco Bay Area and entered the public school system in Redwood City, California.

Her first Christmas at elementary school, she felt the sting of being different. Suddenly, she was left out. Every craft project in December revolved around trees we don’t have in our home. She sat on Santa’s lap, knowing he was just a man in a fake beard, so she wouldn’t “ruin it” for the other children.

When I took the time to make dreidel-playing kits and share our traditions with her class, the teacher asked, “When do we play the gambling game? I know you people are good with money”. When my anxious daughter was too nervous to sing the dreidel song, the same teacher said, “We’re doing this for you, you know”.

Christmas in America is all-consuming. From November to January, it’s everywhere — sparkly, alluring, accessorised with hundreds of Hallmark movies.

That year, my daughter asked me why I “had” to marry someone Jewish. If I had married out, she mused, she could’ve been a “both” kid. She wouldn’t feel like she had to choose between who she is and what everyone else gets to be.

When we moved back to Australia in 2022, I assumed Christmas would be less pervasive. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Australia’s approach to the season makes America look like a beacon of inclusivity. In the US, they’ll at least throw in a token menorah. They’ll sing the dreidel song, even if it singles you out. They’ll invite children of different backgrounds to share their winter holiday traditions.

Here? When my daughter asked her teachers why Chanukah wasn’t included in any of the end-of-year fun, they seemed perplexed. When she crossed out worksheets asking about Christmas Eve and replaced the words with “Chanukah,” they chuckled at her sassiness — never considering that an eight-year-old shouldn’t have to do that.

Here’s the thing: I’m not “anti-Christmas”. Not even a little.

I love Christmas. It’s fun. The decorations are beautiful. There’s something so magical about the twinkling lights and the sparkle of it all. When I visit family members who celebrate, I happily join in their traditions — just as they join us for Rosh Hashanah dinners or light the menorah with us on Chanukah. That reciprocal, inclusive relationship — where we honour each other’s worlds — is what makes it meaningful.

But as a Jew, I also know that Christmas has a complicated history for my people. It’s not just festive — it’s been weaponised in ways that hurt us. We just don’t celebrate it in our home. It’s not because I don’t see its beauty. It’s because it isn’t ours. And I want my children to feel safe and proud in the traditions that are.

Even Jewish people have told me, “You can’t complain. It’s a public school, and Christianity is Australia’s religion”.

No. It is not. Australia is a secular country with freedom of religion.

New South Wales law explicitly mandates that public schools remain secular. Asking non-Christian children to sing Christmas songs as part of the school year’s conclusion violates that promise — no matter how harmless those songs may seem.

Jewish families shouldn’t have to enrol their children in Jewish schools just to escape Christmas dominating the end-of-year curriculum.

Expecting Jewish children to participate in Christmas at every turn during the final weeks of school is isolating. It leaves them feeling excluded, wondering why their own traditions aren’t worthy of inclusion.

And now, in a climate where antisemitism is on the rise — where othering leaves Jewish mothers wondering yet again if there’s a future for their children in another diaspora home turning sour — my patience has run out.

I reached out to Matt Cross. I asked him to consider that centering one tradition in a “fun” competition for an enormously diverse electorate, full of children with many identities, is a missed opportunity. At a time when we desperately need efforts to build social cohesion, it’s a chance to bring children together rather than leaving some out in the cold. I never heard back.

 My daughter refuses to sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” at her school show but joins in loudly for “...and a Happy New Year”. It is her small act of rebellion, her way of saying, “That song isn’t for me, and I won’t be forced to sing it”.

As we walked out of our third “Spectacular” since moving home, my daughter confessed to her (wonderful) principal that she didn’t sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. I started to tell her not to be rude but stopped.

She wasn’t being rude. She was being herself, in the best way she knows how.