Each year, many of those who celebrate Christmas gather to eat a large meal and open presents. Many Jews, meanwhile, carry out another tradition on and around December 25th: Eating at a Chinese restaurant. This custom traces its roots to New York City’s Lower East Side, but it now happens across the country. Here’s what to know about the Jewish tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas.
The Tradition Began in NYC’s Lower East Side
Jews in New York City have a long-established history of eating Chinese food, dating back to at least the late-1800s, according to Shiyong Lu, a doctoral researcher in Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History at New York University. The culinary custom began because Eastern European Jewish immigrants and Chinese immigrants lived in close proximity to one another on New York City’s Lower East Side.
Between the late-19th and early-20th century, the neighborhood became home to the largest Jewish community in the world, explain Maya Locker and Amanda Gordon of the Museum at Eldridge Street, housed within Manhattan's historic 1887 Eldridge Street Synagogue. Locker and Gordon note in an email to HISTORY that “its new residents brought customs and traditions that evolved to fit American life, and created new traditions alongside their neighbors.”
One of these new traditions was eating in the 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.
The first known mention of this culinary tradition was in an 1899 article in the American Hebrew weekly magazine, which condemned eating in Chinese establishments because the food wasn’t kosher, he explains. “We know that it must have been a custom that was growing, because it was discussed in the Yiddish and Jewish press in New York in unfavorable terms,” says Plaut, who is also executive director of the nonprofit American Friends of Rabin Medical Center.
Why Chinese Food?
Chinese restaurants weren’t the only dining option for Jews living on the Lower East Side. Other groups living in the neighborhood—including Italian, German, Polish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Lebanese, Syrian and Turkish immigrants—also had cafes, restaurants and taverns. But Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe gravitated towards Chinese establishments for several reasons, other than proximity.
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 explains. “And there was no anti-Semitic history between the Chinese and Jewish people.”
Chinese cuisine was also popular among Jews because it did not combine meat and dairy—something prohibited under Jewish dietary laws. It did, however, often contain pork, which is typically off limits for those keeping kosher, but considered “safe treyf” (non-kosher food) when served in a Chinese restaurant. “Pork may have been hidden inside a wonton, but was considered ‘safe treyf’ because it’s chopped up and you can’t see it,” Plaut explains.
Additionally, Chinese food “wasn’t extremely spicy,” and used familiar ingredients, like onions, garlic and vegetables, which Plaut says made the dishes palatable despite being a departure from what Jewish immigrants would have cooked themselves.
Though Chinese restaurants served Jewish customers throughout the week, they became especially popular on Sundays. “Jews patronizing Chinese restaurants for Sunday lunch and supper ran parallel to after-church meals organized in the homes of church-going Americans,” Plaut writes in A Kosher Christmas: 'Tis the Season to be Jewish. Eating dim sum for Sunday brunch also became a Jewish custom, he notes.
According to Lu, Chinese restaurants embraced and fostered this Jewish tradition since it was good business. “During most of the 20th century, Chinese restaurants were the only stable options on Sundays,” she explains. “Chinese restaurateurs themselves knew about it also, and made it a selling point in their ads posted in the Jewish newspapers. They would say, ‘we offer Sunday chicken [and] steak meals’ or ‘we are open late on Sundays.’”
Finally, eating in Chinese restaurants offered a way of assimilating in a new country. “It was part of the process of Americanization,” Plaut says. “Eating out was becoming more popular in general from the 1890s in the United States. It was also probably a sign of being able to afford it, because eating out was then a luxury.”
Jewish Christmas Traditions
While it’s unclear exactly when eating Chinese food on Christmas became an established Jewish tradition, Plaut says that it’s likely predated by another Jewish Christmas custom: volunteerism. “I call it the ‘Christmas mitzvah,’ and it's about sharing the goodwill of the season by doing charitable acts all over the country,” he explains.
By the early 20th century, Jews were already congregating on Christmas to engage in communal charitable acts, and regularly eating in Chinese restaurants—including on Sundays, when their Christian neighbors got together after religious services. As Locker and Gordon point out, unlike the Italian, Irish, German and Polish immigrants on the Lower East Side, the Jewish and Chinese communities largely didn’t celebrate the Christian holidays. “Of course, the biggest of these holidays is Christmas, during which ‘the City That Never Sleeps’ essentially shuts down,” they explain.
Chinese restaurants, however, remained open. “Over the years, Jewish families and friends gather on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at Chinese restaurants across the United States to socialize and to banter, to reinforce social and familial bonds, and to engage in a favorite activity for Jews during the Christmas holiday,” Plaut writes.
Along with volunteering and eating at Chinese restaurants, going to the movies on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day became another long-standing Jewish tradition, Plaut says. This began in the early 1900s, when Jews would go to nickelodeons to see an early form of film on their days off, including on Christmas. More recently, Jewish directors like Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg opted to open many of their new films on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
“[For Jews] there’s the feeling of being left out [on Christmas] and not wanting to be outsiders, and it’s a day off, so why not get together with family and friends and go to the movies or a Chinese restaurant,” Plaut says.
Tradition Continues
The Jewish tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas got a high-profile mention during Justice Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2010. When asked where she had been on Christmas Day, she famously responded: “You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.”
In more recent years, Plaut says that the tradition of eating in a Chinese restaurant on Christmas has extended to other Asian cuisines, including Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Malaysian and Thai. “There are Asian restaurants in the suburbs and all over the United States now, so it's easy to go out for Chinese food or Thai food on Christmas Eve,” he says.
And you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Chinese food around Christmas. According to data from GoogleTrends from 2006 to 2023, searches for “Chinese food” in the United States peaked each year between Christmas and New Year’s Day. “Chinese restaurant owners will actually tell you that it's their most popular and busiest day of the year,” Plaut says.
Given that Jews account for approximately 2.4 percent of all adults in the U.S., it’s likely that people outside of the faith have also adopted the tradition of gathering at Chinese restaurants on Christmas.
“It’s a way to make your own insider form of celebrating the holiday,” Plaut says. “Instead of Christmas ham, maybe you’ll have kung pao chicken.”
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