For many, Christmas dinner is a time to gather with family and friends to enjoy ham or turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, roasted vegetables, green bean casserole and more. But for many Jewish people, eating at a Chinese restaurant is a thriving tradition.
According to Google Trends, the term “Chinese restaurant near me open” is more searched from Dec. 22 to Dec. 28 than any other week of the year. Although this tradition is present worldwide, it is most noticeable in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
The tradition began in the late 1800s in New York City’s Lower East Side, when Eastern European Jewish immigrants and Chinese immigrants lived in close proximity to each other. While living in a completely new country, many Jewish people felt like outsiders, so they did what they could to fit into American culture and lifestyle.
A food piece for HISTORY states, “One of these new traditions was eating in many Chinese restaurants located in the area. ‘There wasn’t a mass decision to start eating in Chinese restaurants, as much as [it was] probably the adjoining neighborhoods and its availability,’ explains Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, rabbi of the Metropolitan Synagogue of New York City and author of ‘A Kosher Christmas: ‘Tis the Season to be Jewish.’”
On Christmas, almost every restaurant and business in New York City shuts down, allowing their employees to spend time with their families and friends. But Chinese restaurants are commonly open, often because these Chinese communities did not celebrate Christmas, in turn, it provided a place for Jewish people to socialize and bond over the holiday.
During this time, the Lower East Side was immensely diverse and full of restaurants from around the world. So, why did Jewish people choose to eat Chinese food?
“First, Chinese restaurants were free of cultural barriers and hostile histories that other locations could pose for Jewish immigrants,” Plaut says. “There were no religious symbols on the wall [at Chinese restaurants], like [at] an Italian restaurant, where there might have been pictures or paintings of the Pope,” he says. “And there was no anti-Semitic history between the Chinese and Jewish people.”
Additionally, eating Chinese food was highly optimal because it did not combine meat and dairy, a practice restricted under Jewish dietary laws. Furthermore, Chinese restaurants were one of the few open on Sundays, and as a byproduct, created a new tradition of eating dim sum for brunch on Sundays.
Similarly, Jewish people would often watch early forms of film at nickelodeon movie theaters on their days off, including Christmas. This tradition began in the early 1900s and has only been growing ever since. Jewish movie directors, like Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen have took this to mind and released films on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
The Jewish tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas has increasingly grown stronger since its origin, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon. A New York Times article states, “Jewish families and others used to flock to Chinese restaurants because that was all that was open, but now it’s almost as traditional as milk and cookies for Santa.”
Almost two millenniums later, this tradition is still thriving, not just in New York City, but across the world too. This continues to bring Jewish people together over Christmas, curating a sense of community and comfort many people find while eating traditional Christmas food with their families and friends.
