Nine Questions with Fictional Jewish icon

Perhaps no character in history has evoked more controversy or provoked more heated discussion than the Hanukkah fairy. Mostly because he doesn’t really exist—and not even in a “Santa Claus doesn’t exist” way. He doesn’t exist in a much more “no-I-mean-he-really-doesn’t-exist-because-he’s-something-someone-made-up-just-so-their-kids-could-have-Christmas-without-being-Christian.” Here, he talks
about corporate outsourcing, parental guilt and little Jewish elf-fairy thingies.

French Davis: So, who are you, really? Where did you come from? What’s your story?
Hanukkah Fairy: First off, lemme start with a little background: Hanukkah is a fairly minor Jewish holiday. Historically speaking, it’s certainly nowhere near as important to Jews as Christmas is to Christians. So, I didn’t need to exist for most of recorded history. Then, along came America… and consumerism and Target ads and interfaith marriages and the next thing you know, I was conjured up as a result of a Hasbro marketing meeting and a few focus group sessions.

FD: Is your real name Harry?
HF: No, no…don’t confuse me with that hack Jon Lovitz. He’s just a Saturday Night Live sketch character. I’m a completely fictional result of parental guilt and excessive expendable income. Huge difference.

FD: What’s your schtick?
HF: Basically, I show up at some time before the sun goes down each of the eight days of Hanukkah, sneak into the house and drop off a gift for children who live there. Parents leave out a little something for me to nosh on, like gelt
or bagels…

FD: Sounds a little familiar…
HF: What, I should do something so different than Santa? The goyim have been borrowing from Jewish culture for 5,700 years. So, we borrow a little back. What’s so bad about that?

FD: Kind of unoriginal is all.
HF: Listen, it’s a proven formula. I’m a smart guy. I was talking to Moshe the other day and he reminded me of the old adage about not needing to reinvent the wheel.

FD: Who’s Moshe?
HF: He’s the lead Mazikeen in my toy factory. Mazikeen are kind of like fairies, except Jew-ier. They’re my version of Santa’s elves. Moshe is very old and he is very smart. He’s also a ridiculously awesome Mah-Jong player. I must owe him around 30 or 40 thousand bucks by now. I don’t know how he does it. I guess that’s the way it is with Mazikeen, know what I mean?

FD: Not really. How do kids ask you for what they want? Do they write letters?
HF: Actually, they have to. There’s no army of Hanukkah Fairies teaming up at malls all over the world. And really, you should write your fairy a letter once in a while anyhow. Would it hurt so much to write a letter now and again?

FD: Do you have a list of who’s naughty and nice? Are you checking it twice?
HF: Actually, here’s a little secret: Santa doesn’t have one of those. It’s outsourced. Google has an algorithm for that. It mines Facebook and a bunch of other social networking sites for children’s activity and assigns a ranking based on their friends, updates and those stupid “I-have-a-farm-and-just-got-my-own-llama” apps. It deducts for those, by the way.

FD: Wow. You really have the system dialed in.
HF: Put it this way: For a completely fictional being, I’m very efficient and talented.

December 2009