We Wish You a Merry Chrismukwanzakkuhstice and a Happy New Year!

2026 started out with an unprecedented moment in New York’s religious history. In the very first midnight minutes of New Year’s Day, the city’s first Muslim mayor took his oath of office with his hand on not one but two copies of the Qur’an: one belonging to his grandfather, and one from the personal collection of Arturo Schomburg at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Library– a small unadorned copy “intended for an ordinary reader and everyday use.” You can read more about the story of this 19th-century Syrian Qur’an– now part of the collective treasure of all New Yorkers– here. It will be on public view at the Main Branch Library later this month. Later today, Zohran will take his oath again in a public inauguration with his hand on his grandmother’s Qur’an.

Zohran’s mayoralty has profound meaning not just for Muslims but for people from other religious traditions as well. You can read Molly Crabapple’s take on Zohran as the heir to Yiddish socialism in the Guardian. And you can watch him making latkes with the Patinkins here. (I was delighted to see that used copies of Doralee Patinkin’s cookbook are easy to find online!)

Meanwhile it’s the 8th day of Christmas, and in this season of ice and ICE, nativity scenes around the country and around the world have been honoring the Holy Family as migrants and refugees, as homeless people, as Palestinians.

Here are Jesus, Mary, and Joseph together in detention in Dallas.

After two years, Christmas celebrations finally returned to Bethlehem. “Today’s atmosphere is half joy and half sadness, because we have brothers who are still dying in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and killing there,” George Zalloum, a Palestinian Christian from East Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera.

The Pope condemned the assault on and abandonment of Palestinians in his first Christmas message. He also remembered and named the people of Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Latin America, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, South Asia, Oceania, and Yemen, seeing the incarnation in them all:

In becoming man, Jesus took upon himself our fragility, identifying with each one of us: with those who have nothing left and have lost everything, like the inhabitants of Gaza; with those who are prey to hunger and poverty, like the Yemeni people; with those who are fleeing their homeland to seek a future elsewhere, like the many refugees and migrants who cross the Mediterranean or traverse the American continent; with those who have lost their jobs and those who are looking for work, like so many young people who struggle to find employment; with those who are exploited, like many underpaid workers; with those in prison, who often live in inhumane conditions.

The invocation of peace that rises from every land reaches God’s heart …

I have to run and watch Zohran’s inauguration livestream, so I’m signing off! I’m praying for peace and hope for you all, for believers and heathens and all of us in between– and for the pagans, may you bask in magical good luck from the Solstice Cat.