Crass Commercial Hanukkah

Not in Heaven · Nov 25, 2021 · 50m

In the last decade, executives at the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime have realized that Hanukkah exists. Now every year seems to bring a new heaping spoonful of shmaltz for Jewish audiences and anyone bored of watching the same Christmas stories told with new wide-eyed actors. Recent entries have been Mistletoe & Menorahs and Love, Lights, Hanukkah!, while this year's Eight Gifts of Hanukkah puts its own semitic spin on the format.

But how should we feel about these movies? Are they a sincere effort to educate Middle America about the Seleucid Greek takeover of a small province of Jews and…