Maybe. Yet behind the furor lies an assumption that at its core, America is not a Christian country, and that Jerry and John threaten that status quo. But that read of America is myopic. Approximately 80% of Americans define themselves as Christian, and more than 90% observe Christmas. America is Christian through and through, in symbol and in content, and American Jews would be well served by acknowledging that.

The First Amendment's "establishment clause" contributed immeasurably to the thriving of Jewish life in the United States. Ironically, though, by safeguarding Jews' comfort in America, the Bill of Rights also fostered an illusion that America was not really a Christian nation. The "Chrismukkah" phenomenon (which originated, apparently, on the TV hit "The O.C." but now gets 117,000 hits on Google) is proof that many Christians and Jews want to believe that there are no significant differences between our faiths. But if there is no real difference, then who cares if ours survives?

No longer surrounded by overtly threatening neighbors, American Jews thrived -- economically, intellectually and politically. In every way -- except as Jews. American Jewish numbers seem to be shrinking, and the levels of Jewish literacy among 95% of American Jews, compared to what they were two or three generations ago, are abysmal. Asked "why Jews should survive," the vast majority of today's American Jewish college students would have virtually nothing substantial to say. If that doesn't change, Jewish physical survival will be meaningless.

Which is why, I submit, Jerry Falwell has unintentionally done the Jews an enormous favor. If Gibson and Falwell accidentally remind Jews that America is, without question, a Christian nation, they might prompt Jews to reflect and to ask, "What do our children need to know, and what do they need to think about as they're growing up,if they're to survive in this environment?" It's a set of questions that might, if we're fortunate, lead to the desperately needed revitalization of American Jewish education and the questions at its core.

Seen that way, a bit of Christmas could do American Jews some good.

And Christmas could help Zionism, too, by helping American Jews see what is truly important about Israel. American Jewish Zionists revel, too often, in images of Israeli power. As critical as Israeli military might is, when I hear about groups visiting Israel going to a military base and firing M-16's as part of their VIP mission, my stomach turns. If these people went to visit England on vacation, would they add a British military base to their itinerary? And if they wanted to show "America" to a foreigner, would they take them to Fort Bragg?

Obviously not. Because Fort Bragg exists so America can exist. America was not created so Americans could have Fort Bragg.

The same is true here. We didn't build this State so that we could have the IDF. We have an army so that we can defend this country. When I point this out to my friends who've just returned from these shooting sprees, they ask (often sheepishly), then what would you have us see?

Go to a bookstore, I tell them, and compare it to Barnes and Noble.

I'm serious. At "holiday season" time in Barnes and Noble, there's always a table near the front (at least in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles) marked "Judaica." Fifteen or twenty titles, selected from among the thousands of others, geared to the Jewish patrons of the store. Some good books, many of which I'd love to read.

But compare that to an Israeli bookstore any day of the year. There, not on some army base, lies the real miracle of Israel. A store full of books written in a language that a century ago virtually no one spoke. With many hundreds of new titles, written for a population less than that of Los Angeles. With Pulitzer Prize quality literature to the Hebrew equivalent of Harlequin romances. Where the no-longer-religious Bialik shares shelf space with the newly religious Ehud Banai. Where post-Zionists and rabid-Zionists are stacked side by side, where Jewish life fights -- and flourishes -- as it can only where Jews are the majority.

Jewish minorities flourished in the past, but back then, neither they nor their hostile neighbors pretended that the relationship was benign. It is the thorough decency of Protestant America that has destroyed Jewish cultural flourishing. (Pockets of creative richness on the Upper West Side, or on the West Side of Los Angeles are extraordinary, but they bear no resemblance to American Jewish life as a whole).

Thus, Jerry Falwell reminds us: Because America is so Christian, Israel matters ever more. Not because it is so powerful, but because it is so Jewish. The point is not that one can't live meaningful and creative Jewish life in the States, for one obviously can. Or that Jewish life in Israel is sufficiently rich, because it isn't. The point, rather, is that the latest attempt to make Christmas Christian again could well be a good thing. It could help us assess more accurately what we're up against in America, and provide clarity on why a richly Jewish Israel matters so deeply.

Imagine: Jerry Falwell gets all worked up, and the Jews become more serious about Jewish education and increasingly aware of why their one and only State matters. Might we be on the verge of another "holiday season" miracle?

(c) 2005 Daniel Gordis