As a member of the Russian-speaking community in Israel, I can tell you that Novy God (Russian for “New Year”) is more than just a holiday marking a new calendar year.
Even if for one day a year, it unites family members who may barely see each other. And it brings alive traditions that are eroding as connections with our post-Soviet past dissipate.
December 31 is often reserved for last-minute grocery shopping and preparing dishes that are made pretty much once a year — because now we’re smart enough to know how unhealthy they are. Olivier salad, I’m looking at you!
In the evening, we put on Russian-speaking TV channels – which, at this point, for most of us is also a once-a-year activity — and sing along to Soviet-era Novy God songs our grandmothers sang us.
As the clocks strike 00:00, midnight, we raise our glasses of champagne and bite on a cracker smeared with caviar, which were unimaginable delicacies in the former USSR, before wishing each other “Happy Novy God!”
It’s not Christian
Novy God is observed in post-Soviet states, and by the Soviet diaspora worldwide. In Israel, the holiday is celebrated by many in the 1.2 million-strong Russian-speaking community, which includes first-generation immigrants as well as their offspring.
According to a recent survey, at least 72 percent of Israelis are familiar with the holiday, but the majority (54%) do not perceive it as part of Israel’s culture.
That may be in part because Novy God has the same visual characteristics as Christmas: a decorated spruce tree, fairy lights and a character suspiciously resembling Santa Claus.
Yet Novy God is not a Christian holiday.
The origin story
In 1929, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union abolished all religious holidays as part of its campaign to — de-facto — outlaw religion. Christmas in particular was branded as “pagan” and “bourgeois.”
In the 1930s, however, the Soviet Union became engulfed in a wave of brutal political repressions, orchestrated by the Communist Party and its leader, Joseph Stalin.
To distract the population from the suffering, mass arrests and executions, the Communist Party promoted the establishment of a series of public celebrations and holidays.
In 1935, it was proposed to start celebrating the New Year to “benefit” Soviet youth. The holiday was to be completely secular but borrow from the Christmas traditions of Western Europe.
And so, New Year trees replaced Christmas trees, while Santa Claus was replaced by Ded Moroz (Russian for “Grandfather Frost”). Ded Moroz was to be assisted on his mission to deliver gifts to “nice” children with assistance from his granddaughter Snegurochka (Russian for “Snow Maiden”).
As the holiday became mainstream following World War II, not many were left to remember that Novy God’s traditions were “adopted” from the West’s version of Christmas.
The Soviet public was entirely secular and was isolated from cultural references that originated in the West.
By the time the Soviet Union fell in 1989, triggering a flow of Western culture into the post-Soviet space, no one really cared that Novy God was essentially a dupe of Christmas. Novy God had a life of its own.
Novy God in the Holy Land
The fall of the Soviet Union also led to mass immigration to Israel in the 1990s, since Jews were no longer afraid to reveal their religious affiliation and had the freedom to relocate. Novy God came to Israel on the aliyah wave of the 1990s.
For years, the holiday wasn’t well-known outside the Russian-speaking community, but with time that changed. Now, Novy God is oftentimes celebrated even among non-Russian-speaking Israelis.
This is partly due to globalization and especially the rise of social media. The aesthetic of Christmas has started to become an inseparable part of Western culture, crossing the religious barrier.
A few years ago, only a handful of small shops in Israel were selling Novy God or Christmas gear. Now, stores in the country’s biggest commercial shopping malls sell Christmas trees, decorations and other Christmas-adjacent merchandise.
There is an old Russian saying: “How you celebrate the New Year is how you will spend it.” And if there is one Russian tradition that we Russian-speaking Israelis will never give up, it is being unreasonably superstitious.
At the end of the day, Novy God is a time for the community to remind ourselves who we are, where we came from and why it’s important always to remember your roots!
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