JERUSALEM — The week before Christmas, shoppers at the Happening novelty store in the center of Jewish West Jerusalem had their pick of Hanukkah cards, toys and menorahs.

That’s not surprising. But something else is: There was also a good assortment of Christmas tree ornaments, wreaths and Santa hats available in the store’s sizeable Christmas section.

In recent years, Christmas, which Jewish Israelis all but ignored in the past, has gained a modest foothold in Israel, most notably in Tel Aviv, a city renowned for its openness. Even in Jerusalem, which is home to hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox and moderately devout Jews and equally religious Muslims, displaying a little Christmas spirit in a Jewish or Muslim store is no longer considered taboo.

Observers attribute Christmas’ increasing visibility in Israel to the influx of 250,000 to 300,000 non-Jewish Russian immigrants with Jewish roots during the past 15 years, many of whom celebrate Christmas, and to the presence of tens of thousands of Christian foreign workers.

Traditionally, Christians in Israel have practiced their religion quietly, not because they faced official discrimination, but because, as a minority, they felt out of place in a society that is overwhelmingly Jewish (and in many places Muslim).

Even today, in the era of globalization and Americanization, there are no sidewalk Santas in most Israeli city centers, and no outdoor trees lit with Christmas lights.

Outside of the churches, the only public lightings are of Hanukkah menorahs, which stand prominently on public buildings and in the windows of almost every Jewish home.

Christmas is celebrated more openly in Nazareth and predominantly Muslim East Jerusalem, where Christian Arabs deck the streets with Christmas lights and sing carols in the streets.

Yet in southern Tel Aviv, which is home to a large population of foreign workers, stores stock Christmas ornaments and holiday cards. Some have Christmas trees in their windows. Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties abound.

In Jerusalem, which is slow to embrace any kind of change, many stores now stock Christmas items. Proprietors on

“Traditionally, celebrating Christmas the way they do in Tel Aviv pubs and whatever was seen [by religious Jews] as testimony to the slippery slope away from Jewish tradition,” said Stuart Schoffman, a columnist at the Jerusalem Report magazine who often writes about religious issues. “They viewed New Year’s as a Christian holiday.”

Outside Israel, Jews “inevitably feel uncomfortable at Christmastime,” Schoffman said. “America is a pluralistic country but a Christian society culturally.”

The fact that Israelis, including immigrants who were minorities in their home countries, feel increasingly comfortable with Christmas in Israel, could be a sign of national maturity, Schoffman said.

“In Israel, Christmas isn’t a threat to the mainstream normative [Jewish] culture,” he said. “You can view it as a healthy openness to a multicultural society based, to a certain degree, on the confidence of having national sovereignty.”

Yaniv Yaakov, the manager of the Happening store in Jerusalem’s city center, said the store began to stock Christmas items a few years ago, when Russian immigrants began to request them.

“Now they come every year,” Yaakov said. “So do a lot of foreign caregivers from the Philippines and Sri Lanka.”

Occasionally, Yaakov receives complaints from Orthodox Jewish customers, “who ask me why I stock Christmas items in Jerusalem, of all places. I tell them I have clients from different cultures. All people are welcome here.”

Shmuelik Gabai, the manager of the Mega supermarket in the Talpiot Industrial Zone, also in West Jerusalem, acknowledges that some of his fervently religious Jewish customers have bristled at the sight of Santas and Christmas stockings filled with chocolates.

“A handful of people have said it’s not okay to sell Christmas things, but as long as it’s kosher, I don’t have a problem selling them. All kinds of people shop at our market,” Yaakov said.

Local Christians say they aren’t bothered by the lack of Christmas fanfare in the Holy Land, either in East or West Jerusalem.

Anij, a 25-year-old Catholic resident of East Jerusalem, said that he can go to the Christian enclave of New Gate if he wants to purchase something “overtly Christian.”

“Christmas is more spiritual and less materialistic here than in the West,” said Anij. “West Jerusalem is for shopping.”

Michele Chabin

writes from Jerusalem.