Shatner earns wrath of Chanukah lovers
There’s little question who Judah Maccabee would choose as his favorite starship captain.
Who other than James T. Kirk could argue a Greek god into non-existence (in the Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonis?”)? Who else had the ultimate Chanukah-time answer to Antiochus, in a speech he delivered to a bearded Spock from an alternate universe (in the episode called “Mirror, Mirror”): “I submit to you that your empire is illogical because it cannot endure!”
So it comes as a particular disappointment that William Shatner, the Jewish actor who played Captain Kirk, recently released a star-studded holiday album titled “Shatner Claus,” on which he croons classic Christmas tunes including “Jingle Bells,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and “Silent Night.” Notably, the album included no Chanukah songs.
Now, Shatner appears to have regrets.
“I was going to do ‘Dreidel, Dreidel,’ then I thought better of it … I mean, I should have, maybe,” Shatner said in the upcoming PBS documentary “Hanukkah: A Festival of DeLights,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
For the documentary, Shatner shared some of his childhood Chanukah memories.
“The menorah was silver and blackened a little by years of use — the places where the candles went in were black no matter how much polishing had been done,” Shatner said. “It was something that sat somewhere on the mantelpiece all year long until it was used — and then it was used with great reverence.”
The Montreal-born actor also talked about how his mother would make latkes during the holiday.
“My mother’s standing over a frying pan, putting the mixture of potato, the ground-up potatoes into the sizzling fat, the oil, and frying up potato pancakes,” he said. “The [memory of] potato pancakes and the applesauce … and the family all around having the pancakes is indelible.”
JTA
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